Whiskey, Wood & Bone
by Gelana
Summary: Bates and Anna au that takes place during the logging boom in the Santa Cruz mountains of California in the late 1800s. M for mature themes. It is really not as far-fetched as it sounds. Come on, give it a chance. You won't be sorry. Seriously. Read the reviews if you won't take my word for it.
1. Tokens

_12th of April 1882  
>She always seems sad. For someone as cheerful and kind as she is — and I believe it when I write that her cheer and good nature are not a facade — her eyes are often searching for something on the horizon or her gaze is turned inward. She genuinely likes people and does not condemn all of my sex for the ill treatment she has received at the hands of some. No woman works as she does without ending the day with bruises; either of the flesh or soul. And I have only ever seen her act cold and standoffish with a select number of people. Most of those are men barred from passing through the doors of the Garden.<em>

He stopped writing and set down the fountain pen that the Earl, his employer, had gifted him for Christmas. The pull he took from the bottle was small and slow. A protracted sip really. He stretched into the ache in his lower back. There were splinters under two of his fingernails, big enough to hurt but fine enough to prove impossible to remove. He loved and hated this country in turns. The swelling and falling scope of it was magnificent, its peoples endlessly fascinating. He had never seen anything like the redwood trees. Taller than the Tower of London, higher than the face of Big Ben. They were awe-inspiring. He hadn't believed the descriptions, couldn't wrap his head around what a tree three hundred and fifty feet tall and over twenty feet in diameter at the base of its trunk would even look like. He and his Lordship were both struck dumb at their first sight of the quiet giants. He supposed he knew what ants felt like as the two of them had watched as a hundred jacks swarmed one of the felled redwood trees that first day.

He liked the Santa Cruz Mountains very much, but there was no real place for him here. After the first few weeks living in the hotel room next to Lord Grantham and following him about dutifully during the day and evening to keep an eye on him, they were labeled the Duke and the Dandy and taken for homosexuals. It became quickly obvious that valets were not a rural Western American affectation. At that point he was banished to a cabin near the lime kilns and timberworks that the English Earl was helping to fund.

The bulk of his duties stripped from him, he tried to make himself useful where he could. Fortunately the logging manager, Elijah Cooper, had in his own words, "Taken a shine to him." Coop, as the jacks called him, had hair the color of dirty straw, was ruddy-skinned from laboring out of doors his life-long, and was happy to put the foreigner to work where there was need. He immediately saw Bates' innate ability to quietly and fairly lead and mentor the younger men and assigned him to work overseeing tree-falls and helping to negotiate disputes between the jacks and the lime workers. He didn't technically make a salary beyond his valet's wages, but Coop, being one of the few men in the mountains who made money enough to bring his wife out, ensured that Bates returned to his bunk with extras of whatever Norah-Jane cooked for him for dinner and leftovers from supper the day before besides. And from time to time Coop ensured that a bottle of whiskey appeared just inside the door of John's small cabin. (It had been occupied by an assistant manager who had been crushed and killed in a tree-fall gone wrong - so it lay empty, and John welcomed it all; the space, food, and whiskey. Any modicum of privacy or home-cooking was much appreciated.) Since His Lordship was still paying him his full wages, it was a most agreeable exchange. Though Coop more or less employed him, he was still seen as a relatively impartial judge and was know for being just and fair, and was often called on to resolve disputes. He went into town three or four times during the week, sometimes more, typically in the early afternoon through the evenings. He tended to the mending and stains, laid out several suggested ensembles and did the shoe and button polishing. It was a strange half-existence.

Though he appreciated the comforting familiarity of a needle and thread in his fingers, a boot brush in his hand, it felt good to fall asleep tired from proper labor. Still, as much as he enjoyed the feel of the sun dappling his skin he had to admit, he was getting old. His bad ankle throbbed, though it had held all day, which was a blessing. He had turned it earlier in the week and it was skirting the edge of giving out entirely once again. He hated to hobble around with the damned cane so he wrapped it tightly and walked with intent and care over the uneven ground. Any more stress he would need the cane whether he liked it or not. He wondered if Coop had started assigning him more managerial duties out of respect or pity. One could never be sure. At least he had something to occupy him. He hated idleness, unless there was a library of books to be read, then he adjusted his opinion on the matter temporarily. Reading was educating oneself and therefor not an idle pursuit. Not that it mattered; there was no proper library for many miles.

At least his shoulder wasn't playing up from decking Sly Tom. The small minded younger man had stepped out of line again and needed to be taken down a peg. True he wasn't technically in charge of the lumberjack, but Sly Tom had been insulting the money behind the operation. The man who made sure he received his pay.

He took another sip and let his mind wander where it shouldn't; to a woman young enough to be his daughter. A woman who looked to him with affection, but certainly not the same sort of affection he felt when he looked at her. A woman of the sort wholly inappropriate for him to bring home to meet his mother, as it were, even if his mother wasn't halfway around the world. A woman whose sweetness was noticed and commented on the camp over. She wasn't called Alyssum Annie for nothing. The joke was that she was as tiny and sweet and pale as the small fragrant white-flowered garden plant, alyssum. She grinned at him when he asked her about it. "When every other plant in the garden is dead, the alyssum is still kicking, still sowing seeds for the next season. Up here it doesn't die in the winters. It's sturdy as dried shit. I reckon there are worse flowers to be likened to, even if it _is_ dirt common."

She made him smile. She was beautiful to be sure; he would never deny the pull of her eyes, the delicate curve of her mouth, the plumpness of her upper arms. She was beautiful to be sure, but she was such a quick wit, so clever, and so kind. These were the things he found himself hopelessly taken with. She told it how it was with the vocabulary of a fairly well read lumberjack. This pleased him, almost more than any of her other attributes. He found it refreshing after all of the games and restraint and prescribed movements of his life.

He met her a short while after he and Lord Grantham had arrived, after they had been given their moniker and it was determined that the "Dandy" would live away from the hotel. They had taken the transcontinental railroad across the middle of the massive country to see where and how His Lordship's American wife's brother was spending his money. The entirety of the family had traveled via first class steamer to Lady Grantham's ancestral home, in part to avoid the London Season this year. Relations between Lord Grantham and his wife had been strained at the best of times since the unfortunate death of their youngest daughter. She had been a vivacious girl. A gust of fresh air through the entirety of the familial house. Dead in childbirth. Lady Grantham and the two older girls were staying for the season with her mother. No one could bear the silent questioning and pitying looks they would have had to endure in London.

Lord Grantham left toward the end of summer, shortly before the family was to return to England and made no commitment as to his return date. John wasn't sure His Lordship had plans to return at all. All the man talked about these days was the lure of the American west and the untapped resources therein. So after several months touring the west coast they had ended up in the mountains along the northern part of the central coast of California in December. Fortunately the winters there were mild. No snow, rarely did the mercury drop to freezing, and rain that actually took the chill out of the air when it fell.

He liked working alongside the jacks. It was hard, honest work and they were hard and typically honest men. Or bold boisterous boys set out to prove their hardness. They were used to downing logs for the lime kilns with a vengeance, and with redwood that was a specialty operation the likes of which he had never before seen. Teams of men pried thick bark loose with long metal levers and sawed the huge logs into shorter chunks. Each chunk was split further, with hammers and wedges and great resounding cracks and pulled by a team of mules to the massive stone kilns. There, the giant hunks of wood were split and split and split again until they were small enough to be kindled.

The Earl himself was happy enough to let them alone and receive reports about the logging operation from afar, without leaving the throes of his usual card or dice games. He quickly made a name for himself despite Bates' best efforts to keep him from the saloons and dance halls. An easy target, John had saved his skin from more than one ridiculous situation. Most of the loggers and lime kiln workers meant no ill. But when men are tired, homesick, drunk, and crowded together, things tended to happen.

He hadn't frequented the Garden when he was in town living in the hotel. He did his drinking primarily in his own room. But when he wasn't chasing after His Lordship to ensure the Earl's safety, he enjoyed playing cards himself. The first saloon he had encountered which boasted a quality card table and skilled dealer had been the watering-hole he'd chosen.

It was possessed of a window that looked out onto the thoroughfare that passed through the middle of the town of Felton. From his seat he watched the men flow in and out of the doors of three saloons that were sat in a row to receive the lime kiln workers as they trudged down from Bennett Street (or Felton-Bonny Doon Road as some called it) to where it intersected Main. The Garden was stood in the middle of the trio, perfectly situated to welcome the men as they stumbled off the mountainside for respite. Some of the girls came out to call for tricks. Whenever he saw her on the street — and that was rarely those first few weeks — it was usually during lulls in the evening, when the first batch of jacks had been sated and unleashed upon the gaming tables and the next round had yet to finish their drinking and gambling. It had been at night the first few times he had seen her, a pale shade, graceful and ghostly in the dark as she swept or leaned against a wall, silent. Then he took note of her by daylight. She'd raise an eyebrow or nod her head as certain men passed, but she didn't actively fish. He noticed it and thought it odd.

From time to time in years past, primarily in the years leading up to the Ashanti War, he'd sought solace with a prostitute. He sought solace, but never found it: he always felt so ashamed afterwards that by the time he was on a ship to the Dutch Gold Coast, learning the rigors of the sea, he had lost his taste for it. Then the atrocities he witnessed during his year in Africa, kidnappings and rapes and murders, only served to cement his opinion on the matter. More often than not these atrocities were at the hands of the men he served alongside. It had been nearly a decade and while he wished he didn't, he couldn't help but remember. No, he had long since given up any desire to find his release between the legs of a stranger.

She was outside, sweeping down the boardwalk in front of the Garden as he tried not to limp on his walk home from putting his employer to bed. This particular night he had been grateful that he had dragged himself down, Lord Grantham had lost a fair amount of money (a pittance to him, really, but a fortune to those around him) playing poker drunk, and had knocked the poker table over and begun hurtling accusations at the saloon's owner just as John had walked in from laying out His Lordship's clothes for the following day. Bates had bodily dragged him from the saloon and back toward the hotel. Ten paces from the establishment the peer began blubbering about his poor sweet baby girl, and how he was ruining things with Cora and was a fool to think he was any good at running an estate or managing his investments. Bates had shaken his head and sighed to himself. He called him milord and had rested a firm, reassuring hand on the peer's shoulder. This brought the Earl back to a sort of somber inebriation that had made the rest of the stumbled journey easier.

He began his walk up to the dark mountainside a half an hour later. The Lord of Grantham had vomited heartily into his chamber pot and then passed out on the floor in his clothes. Undressing him was harder without cooperation, but removing the sick and shit from his clothes later would be decidedly worse. He folded a sheet and rolled his employer over onto it, then covered him with a blanket and tucked a pillow under his head.

Her hair was a bit mussed and the strap of her chemise was slipping from her shoulder to where her shawl rested halfway down her upper arm. And he thought he had never seen anything as lovely as the smile she directed at him as he passed.

"Evening." The lilt of her soft soprano rang through the night air, invitation clear as the stars in the sky, even before she continued to speak. "Care to come slake your thirst?"

He smiled back at her, despite his foul mood at the earlier part of his evening, recognizing the Yorkshire accent. He responded, letting his voice drop the western American intonation, matching her inflection, "I find I'm not thirsty at the moment, thank you."

She laughed and clapped her hands together. "It's always a treat to hear a familiar voice! I was born north of York, in Pickering. I overhead you and the Duke talking while you took him home and even though he sounds like gentry, I thought I heard Yorkshire muddled somewhere in there. Where did you grow up?"

He took one step toward the flickering glow of lamplight and stopped. "Bit of everywhere really, me da was a merchant, so when I was very young we moved a bit. But we settled in London and me mum makes lace from her house for the shops to this day. I've been working for the Earl at Downton Abbey, near..."

"Between Thirsk and Harrogate, near Ripon?" It tickled him how alive she became when she spoke to him, even though she kept her tone quiet. "I grew up three towns over in Easingwold! Well, doesn't that just beat all, an ocean away and we were neighbors. Funny, when I was young, I fancied being a maid in a big house. I thought it would be nice to work amongst such lovely things. But then I imagine they wouldn't much appreciate someone as prone to running her mouth as I am. Are you sure I can't tempt you inside?" She stepped forward and put her hand on the rail of the boardwalk, her smile a beacon. "There is more than one sort of thirst."

He almost believed her. Almost believed that it wasn't his money she wanted. She was obviously skilled at putting people at ease. He thanked her again, tipped his hat and continued on. She was gracious, not vulgar and insistent like some might be. She crowded his thoughts that night.

He found, after he met her, that he played cards in town a bit more often and walked or rode back and forth to town whenever he had opportunity. His employer's horses needed exercising after all. The Garden was situated on the path from his cabin to the Earl's rooms at the hotel. Lord knew the man almost never rode them himself, despite having insisted on purchasing them in San Francisco. He learned from casual inquiry that her name was Annie Lark. She had worked at the Garden for a long time, as long as the man he had asked remembered. No one had a bad word to say about her. She was not prone to opium or heavy drink. She sang like an angel. She was attentive. A few had too many things to say about her and her natural talents. With those men it was all he could do to nod, unclench his fist and walk away.

If she was beautiful in the torchlight, she was radiant in the sun. But in the sun he could see how her smile didn't quite reach her eyes. Still her voice and laughter were lovely and full, and floated out from behind the Garden's doors. She was sweet, but she was not meek. He watched her, in awe one day, as she stood down a mule train driver a solid two heads taller than her and gave him an earful for cursing and striking at the boy with him, presumably his son. She shamed him in such a way that everyone stood still for a few seconds in disbelief as she turned and stormed off. She could sing a bawdy song with the best of them and knock back a shot of whiskey without batting an eye. And she was rumored to have unbelievable aim with a knife.

He watched her from his window table at the Queen of Hearts, where the girls had learned to leave him alone, as he ate salt pork and corn bread and drained several glasses of milk. He was grateful for the nearly two mile walk back up the mountain on the nights he tended the Earl, because it meant he might glimpse her through the windows or the open door. It meant she might even be outside and he might talk to her and be comforted by the sounds of his country.

Sometimes he saw her and held his breath and sometimes she saw him and nodded and smiled. Those times his heart would take off beating in his chest like a horse running flat out. He avoided talking directly to her, because he was afraid of what fool words would trip from his lips. But he loved listening to her talk to others. He rarely saw her outside when it was earlier and the streets were choked with jacks and lime workers. Later, when the saloons were full and the torches and lanterns outside were lit, he often found her sweeping or just sitting quietly in the shadows. Those were the times he longed for and dreaded. Because she remembered him after the first night, he wasn't sure how with as many men passing through the camps as there were. Perhaps it was his accent. If it was calm on the street she would call to him softly, at first it was in the same playful flirty tone. After a handful of times seeing him, and being refused by him, (He could never bed her. Not ever. Even if he was able, after their first meeting he was too far gone to use her like that.) her tone changed. Not the sweetness, that was a constant in her. He couldn't put his finger on it exactly; what was different, but it was. She seemed more genuine somehow, less forced.

They talked about England and Ireland, Scotland, her Scottish ancestry on her mother's side. The details of her life floated to the surface of the river of her words slowly, parceled out tidbit by tidbit over the course of their meetings. Her father died when she still lived in Easingwold. She missed her uncle and aunt, and her sister. (He didn't ask if they were still alive.) Her mother had a beautiful singing voice, long light brown hair, and tried to do what was right for them. Things hadn't worked out as planned. The tides of your life do that.

Some nights she was cheerful and talkative. Other nights he could see through her smile like it was glass. The nights he didn't see her, she haunted his thoughts. They weren't enough, these stolen, one-sided moments. They were only long enough to leave him wishing for her. He had never been so ridiculously sentimental. Had he? His thoughts made him feel guilty, for she probably enjoyed his company _because_ he asked nothing more than to know her. Problem was, the more he knew her, the more he wanted her. Not in a possessive way. Not in the way he had wanted Vera. It wasn't that he wanted to bed her (though he wanted that, too); he wanted to make her smile, and touch the hard angle of her jaw, and show her gentleness, because there was so little gentleness in this valley. There was stone and wood and bone and metal and fire and too many men and much too much whiskey.

He saw her through the window as he was walking one day and she was laughing and carousing through the nearly empty saloon with another of the girls. It made him happy that she found joy in corners and beams of filtered sunlight where she could. It was a rare gift. It surprised him that it didn't bother him more, what she did, all the men she had lain with. It didn't. Not much. She had a job. She was doing it; he hoped she found at least some pleasure in it.

He wanted to hold her, loosely and with care; the way one holds a bird or some other sort of wild creature that nestles into the warmth of a hand or body, that chooses to allow itself to be cradled and cared for. He felt protective over her, though she obviously did not need his protection. He wondered sometimes what it would be like to have her softness and fire murmuring to him in bed at night. He wondered what it would be like to be good to someone and have them be good to him in return. He wondered what she had lived through, if her family had been kind to her or cruel; what events pulled her along into this life in which she didn't quite seem to fit? He wanted to know her. When it came down to it, he was a coward and couldn't bring himself to ask.

Instead he smiled with closed lipped bashfulness and let himself be drawn into her jokes and laughter. Sometimes they talked quietly and sighed. She was the only one he told of his irrational longing for the wide-open, rolling moors of north Yorkshire and the deep bone-cold of the winters there.

There were nights when he didn't know what the hell he was doing there, a continent and an ocean away from his aging mother and his home, dragging his sore ass three and a half mile round trip, to see to helping a grown man change out of his clothes, when there was whiskey in his cabin and a card game in the barracks. He hated that the closest bookstore was in Santa Cruz and even that wasn't a proper bookstore. The nearest proper bookstore was in San Jose, and it was not a journey he enjoyed. Those were the nights where his tells were easier to read and his limp more pronounced. When his mood was foul. But those nights all it took was a glimpse of her through the windows to settle him.

When she was working she was all charm and smiles and flash. She flirted and enticed. He watched her once, could only bear a close viewing the once, as she hung from the waist of a gangly jack he half knew. Watched her convince him with a squeeze of his hip and the tipping of hers. She angled her smile up at the tall young man with her usual sweetness, but even from his seat at the Queen of Hearts, he could see the falseness in it. Everything about her looked posed and forced, with practiced ease to be sure, but still. The man had tried to kiss her; she turned her cheek to him and said something. He grin and fondled her breast through her clothes. She swatted his hand away and bade him follow her inside. He did. After that John Bates had paid his bill and rode darkly up the mountain. Saying he was surprised that it didn't bother him more was not the same as saying it did not bother him at all.

It was three months, late March before he went into the Garden for the first time. He hadn't seen or talked to her for a week. Not since he saw her as she walked out of the house and purposefully up Bennett Street on a Tuesday afternoon. By the following Wednesday he was not worried, not exactly; curious and concerned, perhaps.

When he sat at the bar a fat older woman with an obscene amount of bosom spilling out of her corset, slopped some whiskey into a shot glass for him. "Tokens for a bath are a half dollar, tokens for a girl are two."

He shook his head. "Just the drink."

She cocked her head, sized him up in two blinks.

"You're Annie's gentleman caller," she stated bluntly and chuffed. "I ought to charge you a token a week for all that girl's time you waste. You're definitly paying double for that whiskey. What the hell you doing, muddling her head?"

"I assume you are Vi?" She nodded and raised an eyebrow. He looked at her. "You seem to be turning a fair business, despite any head-muddling you seem to think me guilty of; besides Annie isn't interested in me like that..."

Her laughter split the air, interrupting him. "You want to pique that girl's interest, buy a token."

"Seems to me, a young woman such as Miss Lark is quite a draw, place like this. We never talk for more than a few minutes at a time, and if we do, it is when she doesn't have any jacks occupying her."

Vi snorted, "She ain't being _occupied_ by any jacks, because she's out talking to you."

A retort was swallowed down, like so much gristle. He kept his face smooth. It wouldn't do to anger Vi, who would only take it out in Annie. "You said a token is two dollars?" He asked, already knowing the answer. "A token a week since we met, by my reckoning is twenty six dollars give or take two. Here's thirty. That enough for you to let her be regarding what little time she spends talking to me?" It was nearly his entire month's wages. But he had plenty set by for a rainy day, and Norah-Jane's cooking, and a bottle of whiskey besides, enough that he would be fine until the next time he was paid.

Vi eyed the bank notes on the bar. "For a few weeks, long as she isn't shirking her _other_ customers."

He felt his ears burn. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell her I paid you."

"What, so she won't find out that you are the same as all her other johns? Only, they are smart enough to pay for her pussy and not just her time."

Again he bit his tongue. He stood on his bad ankle and breathed into the pain. Let it eclipse his anger and draw his focus. The drops of laudnam were waiting for him. He had been cutting back. Which meant he was drinking more whiskey. Not much more. Maybe only half again what he usually drank. It was how the scales balanced. He decided then and there to stop walking the trip entirely and consistently make use of His Lordship's horse. It was ridiculous to walk the whole way and lay waste to his leg when His Lordship had two horses just stood in their stalls at Johnston's Livery.

"If you want to keep getting your money," he growled his irritation at the woman. "You won't tell her." He decided he didn't like Vi. And then he decided he wasn't proud and asked his next question anyway, "Where's she been these last few days, if you don't mind my asking?"

"I do mind your asking, but it's a free country. She been up at Miss Minnie's place. Nursing a doxy cunt as used to work here over to t'other side. Now _you_ don't mind I have a slew of jacks and johns as need a bit of tenderness. I assume, as stupid as you are, you can find the door when you're done sipping that whiskey like it's fucking tea?"

He glared at her in silence as she ambled away laughing to herself.

He hadn't been to Miss Minnie's before, but he had bought fruit preserves and pickles from her along with some cream or His Lordship's arthritis that seemed to work far better than the rub the town doctor prescribed. As strange as she was, he very much liked the woman. She was roughly his age and trundled her wares into town and up to the lime works on a regular basis. She was very nearly a general store on wheels. She was as hard and weather-beaten as most of the jacks, and ornery besides. She had a somewhat disgruntled old draft horse that pulled her cart up and down the same mountain road he walked.

He knew the road that led to her family property as he passed it every time he came down the mountainside from his cabin near the lumber and lime works barracks. It wasn't a cabin so much as it was a glorified lean-to. At least it afforded him a touch of solitude in the night. He was less at Lord Grantham's beck and call this far from the peer, who favored it beyond discouraging their undeserved reputation, for his servant's proximity to his investments. He would see to tacking on a proper a stall for whichever horse he rode home at night. Mountain Mike claimed to have shot the last grizzly bear a few years before, but that didn't mean it was true.

He caught sight of her when he rounded a curve in the narrow road. She was born to be amongst the green, he thought. Outside, in the open air. He smoothed the smile that threatened to betray his joy at happening upon her.

Her hair was tied up neatly under a smart, simple hat. The dress she wore was blue. It was plain and sensible. She looked at bit like a farmer's wife. A very somber, sorrowful farmer's wife. Her face brightened a bit when she looked up at the sound of hoof-falls and saw him, "Mr. Bates, what a lovely surprise. I was..." She gave a sort of yelp and arms flew out instinctively (hers and his) as she stumbled. Her baskets fell, scattering greens and beets and carrots over the ground.

She somehow managed to remain upright. He was grateful for that, and quickly slid off of Isis. Stooping, he snatched a basket and began to fill it.

"No! What are you doing?" She took the basket from his hands, flustered. He ignored her and continued gathering her fallen produce. "I mean to say, thank you. But, please, there's no need Mr. Bates, I'm fine. What if someone happened upon us? What would people say? I won't have anyone think ill of you, not on my account."

"Anyone who would think ill of me for helping you is no concern of mine," he said warmly, snatching a carrot. "It only shows their own lack of character if they don't know how to treat a lady."

She laughed out loud, her smile lingering, "Be that as it may, Mr. Bates, there is a flaw in your logic; I'm not a lady and never claimed to be."

There were times when he forgot to hide his expression, to guard his glances, when he forgot she didn't love him back, didn't desire him for more than his kindness or company, when he forgot to censor his words. They slipped out now, laden, humming in the air between them, "You're a lady to me. And I never knew a finer one."

She looked at him opaquely, her smile gone, and he knew he had crossed a line. He closed his eyes and reached blindly for the last beet, depositing it in her basket before giving her an awkwardly-garnered smile and catching up Isis' reins.

"Mr. Bates," her voice was small, her footfalls on the packed dirt behind him. He turned to her with the kindest face he could muster. Jumped a little, surprised by the touch of her fingers when she pressed a coin into his palm. The clasp of her hand made his breath catch. She held his eyes and the yearning he thought he saw in them shocked him.

It wasn't a proper coin, but a token. Like the ones for which he had just paid her madam. How the saloons got around the law. His brow furrowed when he settled all the pieces together and realized her intent.

"I don't ... I don't want this from you." He stumbled over his words, flushed and hot with embarrassment at being caught out in his more-than-brotherly affection for her. She frowned and looked away - he hated for her to frown.

"I'm sorry." The pure bell of her words rang soft and hollow. "I thought... I didn't mean to..."

Did she look embarrassed? No. She couldn't be. And she certainly couldn't be disappointed. It wouldn't have been yearning that he saw. She glanced at him. He had misread things before in his life, so many times. It wouldn't be the first time he thought he saw something that wasn't there. He could never let her think this was what he wanted. Yes, he wanted to make love to her, (he could not lie to himself about that,) but not like this. Never to just use her for his own desires. He reached out and caught her wrist. Her hand was so delicate and small, he turned it over and placed the token back into her palm, gently closing her fingers over it. She took a sharp breath in through her nose, frowned, kept looking away, not meeting his eye.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I meant no offense. I only wanted to ... I wanted to show you my gratitude, is all. It's all I have to ..."

"Miss Lark," he interrupted, panicked. His mouth went dry. "Miss Lark ... I ... Please. You mustn't ever think that you need to... That I expect ... That you ever owe me anything ... I want nothing more from you than your friendship."

"Everyone wants something, Mr. Bates, even you." She looked at him for a long time. And with a start he realized he had been moving his thumb slowly back and forth across her wrist.

Abruptly, he let go of her. "I treat you as I do because I am fond of you and it pleases me; not ever so you'll please me."

Annie blinked rapidly and looked at the packed dirt of the road, "I am ever so sorry, Mr. Bates. I hope you will overlook my indiscretion."

"Lord, Annie! Please don't apologize - not to me. You've done nothing wrong. I just ... couldn't." The air felt like breathing in limestone dust after the dynamite blew apart the mountainside. "Not like this," he whispered, his voice gone rough. Then he realized what he had said. Abruptly, he lifted one of the baskets from her arms and turned to carry it for her. He couldn't meet her eye. She fell into step next to him. They walked together back to Felton, the horse following behind.

"Weren't you headed the other way?" she asked after a time, glancing sidelong at him.

"Yes, but it pleases me to walk with you," he answered truthfully, feeling his ears and cheeks go hot.

"My friend died," she blurted, suddenly. "Eunice. She worked for Vi too, until she got sores. Vi will tolerate a bit of itching, but you're out of a job when you have the sores. After Vi turned her out, she worked holding up the alley wall. Ms. Minnie was letting her stay on, do some sewing in exchange for room and board when she couldn't find enough jacks as willing to pay. Last week, she was beaten. No one knows who's done it. She was bleeding somewhere inside and her body was already weak."

She sighed deeply. When he looked at her, the muscles in her jaw stood out. "We aren't wicked, you know. Well, some are, but no more than anyone is wicked. We aren't. It's just that a woman's only worth in a man's eyes is between her legs. Especially out here. And if she hasn't great wealth she does what she must. Eunice was a kind woman. And so funny; she was always good for a lark or a laugh. She was my friend." Her words sounded strange - hard and tight. When she stopped speaking tears rolled from her eyes.

Before he could stop himself he caught her up in his arms and stood still in the road, cradling her weeping form to his chest. She was slight, but more solid than he expected and he held her more tightly than was his intention. "I'm so sorry Miss Lark." They were empty words, as he had no real idea of what to say, though he blundered on, "She was lucky to have such a friend in you."

She made no move to extricate herself from his arms, if anything she settled further into them.

"It does no good hating," she murmured, caught up in her thoughts. "It doesn't alter anything but your own heart. I know that. Doesn't fix anything. This is my life. There is no changing what I am. But when things like this happen... It's hard not to be angry. We are more than a hole to fuck or a body to beat." Her words pulled her out of herself. She pushed away from him and dried her eyes. "I'm ever so sorry, Mr. Bates, look at me gone weepy and sentimental, and vulgar to boot." She gripped his hand and forearm briefly. "I hope you'll find it in your heart to forgive me for all of my transgressions today. I am more than a bit out of sorts. It has been a long, sorrowful week. If I am being honest, I am rather poorly."

He shook his head. "You need never apologize, Miss Lark. Not to me. You could never offend me. Not ever."

She looked at him with a guarded expression before sighing and nodding, and resuming their walk.

"I cannot tell you how much it means to me to hear you say that, Mr. Bates."


	2. Daylight & Darkness

**A/N: Almost everything is historically accurate aside from one or two omissions of place names, fudging of exact locations, etc. I may edit minor details as I learn new things. This all takes place a few miles from where I live. There are still buildings that were saloons and whorehouses standing. No one talks about the women who worked there. The museums don't. They focus on the lime workers and the lumber jacks, the business owners, schools, and clergy. No one talks about the girls and women working, often against their will, doing what needed to be done to survive. Or try to survive. I am actually trying to edit out and tone down most of the horrific things that probably would have happened to a girl alone in this time period and place. Reviews encouraged. Feedback welcome. I'm feeling nervous about this behemoth.**

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><p>She was tired as dirt. And sore. Her tricks had been rough.<p>

Well, one had been rough (in an eager and inexperienced way, not in a cruel way, which helped) and one of the others had been old and limp, and a long time reaching his release. She had been propped up on her elbow at an odd angle working him with her hand for what felt like forever. Her neck had a crick in it and Vi had been on a tear all night. Still ruffled over the time she took to help ease Eunice's passing, Annie supposed. One could never be sure with Vi. Some days it had nothing to do with anything but who walked into the crosshairs. It was usually her, if only because Vi had Annie neck deep in numbers and orders and managing the comings and goings of the place. They were always tripping on one another.

One of her regulars had been by, who knew her well and who she usually enjoyed. Peace Booth had been a stage coach driver, after surviving the civil war as a young teen, but had recently lost most of his work when the rails were lain in the mountains. Now he drove a team of mules that pulled hunks of split irregular redwood for tindering at the kilns. Even Peace had proved bothersome, though.

Such was her night.

It would appear that the thin strands of her attachment to Mr. Bates had not gone unnoticed. Nothing in this camp was ever kept quiet or private. Not for long. And of course, god forbid anyone should ask her something without having their hand on her ass. At least he had asked her outright.

"How come you been mooning over the Duke's dandy?"

She had raised an eyebrow and tried to keep her expression playful while she hit him with her pillow. "Peace Booth, when have you ever seen me moon?"

She rolled onto her back, pulling him with her and he pressed his thigh against her. When he lipped at the swell of her breast, she affected a moan and rubbed the swollen crotch of his pants, hoping to distract him while he moved fully between her legs.

"All I know is since I seen you talking with him, you have times where you get different."

She freed him from his trousers and he had thrust deeply into her, she had grunted and looked away. She knew exactly what he was talking about; the moments when she was pretending it was _him_ inside of her. She hoped any coloring she did would be confused with the flush of arousal and exertion, and tried to form a sultry expression when she looked back at him. He unhooked her busk and then his hands were teasing her breasts. At the very least, he understood how to do this and several other things properly.

"You aren't making any sense, you fool man," she obfuscated, rolling here eyes in a slightly exaggerated way, tipping her hips to meet his strokes, and listening to the sharpness of his breath for her cues. "What business would I have mooning over the Dandy? Do you know me no better than that?"

She had focused her attention on him, hoping to distract him as fully and thoroughly from his train of thought as she could. It wasn't enough, he still fucked her like he had something to prove. It was tiresome when men tried to force pleasure out of her. So she did what she always did and pretended to enjoy herself more than she was. She made eyes at him and said little things to speed him along, about how good he was, how big he was, how good he felt, whatever load of horse-shit and bollocks he wanted to hear. Each man was different with what he needed. And she knew Peace Booth backwards and forwards. Harmless and all talk, but usually trying to prove something he didn't need to, in every aspect of his life. She was fond of him, or at least not opposed to him. She felt a bit sorry for him most of the time. His lot in life had been easily as hard as hers, and losing his main source of income was a staggering blow to his ego. The logging operation paid him decent wages, but nowhere near what he was making driving a stage coach. He was usually a bit less aggressive and a bit more attentive. This night he walked the edge of roughness. He knew what she would and wouldn't tolerate and skirted it the whole encounter. It left a sour taste in her mouth. With him gone, she washed herself for her next trick and looked out Fern's window to the street below out of habit. She pretended it wasn't for _him_, but it was. And then she felt her stomach sink, because he was there, talking to what very much looked like Peace. She moved away from the window and squared her shoulders. It didn't matter. The mule man would run his mouth off and Mr. Bates would think what he would think, both of Peace and of her. And perhaps it was for the better. It was wrong letting him grow attached. She closed herself off from the panic that started to open like a hole low in her gut. She took a few deep breaths, and slipped her Alyssum on, as it were. She had the rest of the night to see to, after all. When she went downstairs she made sure to look for him, but he had gone.

Fern had locked Vi in her room while Annie was still tending to Peace's needs, which was some sort of a relief. The woman finally passed out just before four in the morning after hollering on and off about cocksuckers and politicians for the better part of two hours, only to rouse when Annie unlocked the door and slipped into bed beside her. She didn't protest when Vi mumbled something and pulled her hand to the slit in her bloomers. It didn't more than a few minutes for Annie to tease an orgasm from her. Easier and faster than the whiskey fueled argument that would ensue if she refused and fully roused Vi to waking. She didn't mind, not really. At least she didn't have to sleep by herself.

When Vi passed back out a short while later, she slept like the dead. Annie wondered if she slept like that because she was such a drunkard or if she had turned herself into a drunkard so that she would be able to sleep. Really it was splitting hairs. Annie couldn't find her way to sleep herself. It never seemed to fully come to her. A few minutes here, a half hour there, and then she would jerk awake, floundering and gasping like a fish out of water. Being inebriated when she fell asleep didn't lengthen her rest, it just meant her head spun and she felt nauseous when she woke up in a cold sweat half of an hour later. She knew she dreamed but could never remember any of them, only waking to the sensation of panic and trying to get away.

The sun broke the horizon and washed the room in pale morning light before Annie slid from under Vi's sleep laden arm. She sat on the bed and stared at her for a minute. Open mouthed and snoring, without her anger to poison her, Vi was a handsome woman, buxom and solid, and pillowed as a cushion. Her long chestnut brown hair was streaked through with silver. The thick rope of it draped over her throat, obscured part of her chin.

Annie scrubbed her hands over her face. The fingers of her right hand smelled of the other woman. It wasn't that she begrudged Vi a bit of release - not at all. It was just some nights she wanted to be let alone. She sighed and slipped out to wash in Fern's basin. If Vi was being extra wretched she stayed in Fern and Dawn's room. She never did like to sleep alone; not from the time she was little. Especially not now. Not since the other place.

Fern's bed was untouched. Dawn's was empty, but left mussed. Annie straightened the sheet out of habit. Fern was probably sleeping in Séam's room. They were like brother and sister, those two; slept like litter-mates sprawled across each other when Vi was too drunk to pay attention, which was most nights. They understood each other. And Fern had no reason to lie. If the towering redhead said they were only sleeping, well then, they were only sleeping. Real kinship in this business was hard to come by; knowing the two of them had one another warmed her. Vi didn't believe that they weren't fucking, and tended to watch them like a hawk if she was able. Fortunately, that was less and less as the years stretched on.

Stealing away early, before Vi was up would earn her some sort of passive or not-so-passive retribution, but she was beyond caring and determined not to let it color her day. Dawn and Daphne were already banging around the kitchen and were perfectly capable of handling the Sunday morning crowd. She would be back in time to earn the old cow her money.

The sky was too blue and the trees that still stood were too green to stay inside today. She padded into the back garden, corset-less and barefoot to check on her plants. Something had upset some of the pea starts, but nothing a bit of tamping down of the soil wouldn't fix. She squatted amidst the shoots and leaves and touched small plantlets with the pads of her fingers. As she was oft wont to do, she wondered if she would see him that night. She hugged her knees. Since refusing the token, he hadn't been as much of a presence. She had only seen him a few times in the two weeks and it concerned her. Despite his insistence that he wasn't offended, she wasn't sure. Not that it mattered, after whatever Peace had told him.

Thinking of handing him the coin made her stomach clench. At the time it seemed a way to thank him - that perhaps she could show him what she couldn't say. It had been a bad idea. A selfish idea. He was always so good spirited towards her. And that day particularly she had needed... She paused, mulling over her thoughts. Then she acknowledged what it was that had motivated her and it left her ashamed. She had needed comfort that day. She had been feeling so broken from being present at the death of yet another girl. A girl as dear and wonderfully spirited as Eunice. It was a way to thank him, but really it was a selfish act. She had needed to be held and to feel cared for. Only her Mr. Bates would have closed her fingers back over the token. Only he would so gently refuse her and then hold her and murmur to her anyway a while later when her edges cracked and she started to spill over. She had clung tightly to him in that moment, cherished the strength and comfort she drew from him. Looking back, her actions embarrassed her. She hated to think that she had taken advantage of his kindness, but hadn't she tried to?

There was no way around the notion that she was growing too fond of him and that he had already grown entirely too fond of her. This would not end well, she knew. Shame pricked at her throat that she had let it continue thus far. She needed to be pushing him off, not holding him closer.

It was no easy act to turn away from him. Not when he made her smile. Really made her smile. No one listened to her the way he did. He heard what she said, paid heed to it and remembered. He was sweet and sincere and asked nothing, though she could feel his want like heat sheeting off of him. She should discourage him. She would bring him nothing but pain. Everything she touched seemed to turn to shit in the end. But she could not help glance for him through the window at times when she knew he was more likely to pass by. Or think of the gentle hunger with which he regarded her, in the quiet of the early morning when no one else was awake and she had a few moments' peace to dip her hand between her thighs and enjoy the possibilities of her own body.

Her desire for him surprised her. She rarely wanted the men she bedded. Desire had little to do with the profession the fates forced her into. Vi had shown her the tricks to finding her own pleasure and she had been shocked at how boundless it could be; she learned to enjoy the mechanics of the act in ways she hadn't known were possible while she was at the other place. She didn't talk about how it was there, or him that Vi had saved her from. It was nothing but violation after violation. Bruises, boot toes, and bite marks, and the acrid smell of piss and fear, mingled with the cloying, burning, floral scent of opium filling her nose and throat. She took a deep breath. It was done. Past. She wasn't there anymore. She had gotten away. Vi had chased him off, paid him off, and locked her in a room to sweat the opium out of her blood.

She had come out of that hazy tunnel of pain into not peace, but a better existence than the one she had been living, to be sure. She could never stay too angry with Vi. Not after all the woman had done for her. So she more or less did what was bid of her. Be it scrub vomit off the floor boards, teach methods and specific techniques to the newer girls, or sing bawdy songs in her corset and bloomers thrice a night. The only thing she put her foot down about was turning girls out for showing signs of disease or returning to opium. No amount of cajoling on Vi's part could move her on this. If Vi wanted them gone, Vi could bloody well tell them herself. Annie would not do that bidding.

Vi railed and blustered, but Annie was one of only two of Vi's girls who could read and write and the only one who knew how to do the books, which Vi hated. As soon as she had that figured, she understood her value within the house, and made damn sure that Vi needed her. Which pissed Vi off even more when Annie stood up to her. Still. The woman was usually fair with wages and hours worked, and she had Séamus throw any tricks who were acting up out on their ear. The girls were allowed to refuse jacks they didn't like, and Vi stood behind all of them when it came to that. Vi ran the bath house next door, and she herself made the rule that any men as wanted service, personal service, that is, needed to visit the bath house, or if they were saving their money - the creek out back.

Annie remembered the gratitude she felt, the pure, overwhelming gratitude at being able to bathe whenever she wished. After the dark, (and it was always dark there, without windows, or choices, or fresh air) to be clean and free to move about was like being made new, like being born all over again. Such a blessing. Add on top of that the rule that the men had to wash before helping themselves to her and that she had final say on who actually did help themselves to her and she would have done nearly anything for the woman from then on. She did do nearly anything for Vi from then on. Regardless of the fact that the only difference in her life was that Vi owned her and not him. She knew she was still a thrall and had no real say over whether she sold her body or not, and that fact and time had worn her gratitude thin, but a strange sort of love had grown from her heart to tangle itself about the bitter old cow.

Vi was a cheerful, wicked-tongued inebriate until she wasn't anymore and then it was best to just lock her in her room until she passed out. When she got like that she couldn't hold her hand still enough to unlock the door even if she could find the key. She was a crotchety old bitch, to be sure, (not quite old exactly - more time worn and world weary) but she usually meant well. Bless her; for all her faults, nothing could bring Annie to hate her, even though a fair amount of the time she wanted to.

She let the swaying of leaves focus the wanderings of her mind. She stood from her crouch in the back garden and stretched her back. The air was somewhat fresh, the breeze thinned out the overwhelming smell of livestock and woodsmoke, sawdust and unwashed lumberjacks all pressed tight together. The calm was shattered by a dynamite blast from up the mountainside. The blasts came regular all day long and well into the night, from the quarry up past the lime works. They were disconcerting to be sure, but she barely jumped at all anymore. The day was sunny and cool. Certainly too cool outside at night to sow summer vegetables, but Annie had her peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, tomatoes, and squash starting in tin cans on Vi's window sill. She needed to talk to Miss Minnie about how she got her carrots and beets to grow so very plump; hers were always scrawny. Vi was happy to let her muck about in the dirt out back, especially if it meant fresh free vegetables for the kitchen and flowers in empty whiskey bottles on the bar. She never said so, but Annie could tell that it tickled the dark haired woman that the Garden had an actual garden.

Annie suddenly wanted Mr. Bates to see it and know it was the work of her hands. She would walk him round back when it was later in the season and there was more growing than chard, miner's lettuce, peas, and dandelion greens. It struck her as odd that this was important to her. It was, though: she felt it in a warm place in her chest. Maybe he would sit and chat with her while she dug and planted. Then she shook her head. Inviting him back here would be the furthest thing from pushing him away. She sighed, brushed off her hands, and went inside to quietly change into her dress, upstairs.

She washed her face clean of eye black and rouge in Fern's room when she first got up and had stared at her bloodshot eyes and sallow skin in the milky reflection. Sighing, she faced the looking glass again and thrust her chin forward. Vi's increased inebriation was forcing her to cut down on her own, which was nothing but good. She always looked and felt terrible after she drank more than two shots in a night. Examining her face from one angle and then another, she decided that she looked old. She felt old, she wasn't yet twenty seven, but she may as well have been fifty seven.

Her hair felt dry; maybe Vi would let her use her perfumed almond oil. If there was one thing Vi was vain about it was her hair. It was thick and wavy and it shone in the sun. That was one job Annie never minded, taming and oiling Vi's fresh washed hair. Her own hair annoyed her. It had no life, just lay flat and smooth and slipped out of pins and ties like water. It felt nice, when it was fresh combed and clean, but mostly it seemed to argue with her and fight everything she tried to do with it. She sighed several times as she brushed and braided and twisted and pinned it up and then secured the hat in place over that. Little wisps fought their way nearly immediately free. The fabric of her dress was worn beneath her hands as she smoothed them down the bodice and over her hips. She looked like she barely had two quarters to rub together, but she was modest and presentable. She needed to sit down with this dress and really work it over. It had too many poorly executed repairs.

The walk to the Felton train depot was short. Less than a mile. And it hadn't rained for a few weeks, so she walked on dirt, not dust or sucking mud. Sunday mornings tended to roll quietly in on the town. Those whose shifts let them enjoy Saturday night were passed out in their bunks or scattered in nooks and crannies throughout the main stretch of town. Those who were just ending their day (for while the blasting didn't continue all night, the kiln fires did) dragged themselves into waiting saloons with kitchens and coffee, like the Garden. Dawn was likely barking at Daphne to get the damn coffee served. That poor girl got it from all sides. She stretched her shoulders and neck as she walked and sighed happily when maligned bones popped and settled into place. The sun warmed her in the most delightful of ways. Days like this it was easy to forget the mess of her life, at least for a little while.

She queued up with a handful of jacks, two of whom actually tipped their hats to her and three rather affluent looking gentlemen who did not, and paid her fifty cents for the round-trip train ride. That left her with thirty cents that she had skimmed off of the top of her tips for the occasion. She would buy a bite to eat or some fish from Lit. She hated spending any of her money, squirreled away almost everything she earned. But she also needed to breathe from time to time. If the occasional train ride into Santa Cruz kept her sane while she saved money to pay off Vi, so be it.

She looked at her reflection on the inside of the train window. The dark blue printed calico scattered with paler blue flowers was old but it was the one dress she owned that covered her from ankle to neck. She wore her good straw hat with the pale blue paper flowers that she had managed to keep dry and intact through the winter rainy season. Crossing her ankles beneath her skirt, she imagined the fabric was crisp and new, that she was posh: a governess or a music teacher on her way to educate her charges for the day. She sat primly and let her eyes fall on the line of the ridge, covered in the stubble of giant tree stumps and rode silently, and thankfully unmolested, to the depot near the mouth of the San Lorenzo River. Some tycoon had built a public bathhouse and there was usually a buzzing turnout of bathers and men with fishing poles attending the river. In the time she had lived in the county she had watched it grow and swell to include little shops and curios and many local people hawking their wares to wealthy tourists from San Jose and San Francisco. There was enough commerce out of this strip of beach to necessitate three wharves. Lit inhabited the mouth of the middle one. He always complained about the Italian families that had the more desirable positions further down. He hated the Stagnaro brothers with a quiet passion.

It was days like this she was grateful to have made it all the way to coastal California. The winters were warmer than she had been accustomed, and the heat in summer was blown away by the chill of the Pacific Ocean all but a week or so a year. The summer nights were always pleasant, sometimes downright cold. Alice had liked it. Especially when the sun was warm and the breeze cool. Thoughts drifted like shoals of fish through Annie's mind. Some swam past her, some darted off when she tried to look at them closely. She had managed to keep her money making activities limited to what she could do with her hands in the dark of an alley or under the pier for the time before Alice was gone. She had gone out during the day to "work at the laundry" and then snuck back out again at night after Alice had fallen asleep. She managed to keep what she did hidden from both their landlady and Alice. Managed to keep Alice away from it and blissfully ignorant. She did what she had to do to take care of her sister. And she took good care of Alice, until she couldn't anymore.

There were times, in the other place that she was grateful that Alice had died, because they would have taken her, too. She could hear girls crying through the walls that sounded so much younger. The opium had helped drown that out. She had been grateful for the opium too, for the hazy oblivion it brought after they had first forced it on her to keep her subdued and quiet. But that was another thing best not dwelt upon. She didn't like how pensive she was feeling, didn't like the thoughts that kept swimming past her field of vision. Wasn't sure what brought it all on.

Her shoes clicked over the cobbled streets. She let her eyes go lazy and take in the bustle of the fish market. She enjoyed the throng, though it made her a touch nervous too. She stayed away from it at first, stepped down into the sand, closer to Cowell Wharf. That was the one that the lime works owned on the northwestern-most part of the beach. She hadn't thought to bring her button hook. She would have liked to walk to the edge of the sand and put her toes in the cold surf. She missed her sister. Blinked her eyes fast and smiled at the sea. Squinting at the glittering expanse of blue, she sighed. As beautiful as it was, the sea always made her melancholy. She always managed to forget this until she was faced with it. She found a boulder and sat on it for a while, breathed the salt air blowing off the water.

When she was ready to face the bustle, she meandered down through the fish market near the railroad wharf and looked at the day's catch. A few down here knew her from Felton. For the most part she enjoyed as much anonymity as any other woman whose only presentable dress had so many mended tears. (And a few questionable stains that stubbornly refused to be removed.) Which was most of the fisherman's wives. Her other dresses earned her more money and as such were much more dutifully tended. There was no denying who she was, but she could pretend while she went from catch to catch.

The fishermen never seemed quite comfortable in the company of women, even the ones whose wives helped them sell their catch, but this only amused her and made her try harder to put them at ease. One particularly shy older man proved to be so thrown by her that the first handful of times she visited his catch he was as silent as the fish he'd netted. Finally she prised him open like a mussel or an oyster and once he started to talk, she was hard pressed to silence him. He slipped her treats, like her uncle - her mother's younger brother - used to. He never asked anything in return from her but her company and her stories and she loved him for it.

He had netted bushels and bushels of sardines the first day he spoke with her and sold them with hand signals and grunts. It wasn't that he couldn't talk, he had explained, it was that people never listened anyway. He sent her with enough sardines that day that the other girls and Vi and Séamus besides could have a sardine or two with their supper if they wished.

She always told him about the train ride, conversations she overheard. She took the the rails down most Sunday mornings. It was usually the day when Vi slept latest. Over the years she told him nearly everything. About her sister. About Vi on her good days and her bad. About parts of her life she didn't know she remembered in the rolling Yorkshire countryside. She asked him once if she could go fishing with him.

He had laughed. "Anytime you like. But, you'll have to get up damn early to join me, mija."

He told her the ocean's mood on any given day, the animals he encountered; big and small birds, whales, dolphins, giant sharks. When her garden was producing full bore, she brought him baskets of vegetables.

He told her a story once about a huge shark with a mouth big enough to swallow two men whole. It swam near their boat. Its dorsal and tail fins cut the surface of the water to the height of a man sitting in a row boat; which was to say, as tall as he was. Then other fins started to lift out of the water and they were surrounded by slow moving whale-sized fish. If any of the sharks had so much as bumped into the boat it would have capsized. They didn't, though. They swam with slow grace, mouths like gaping funnels, gill-slits wide, through that northern corner of the Monterey Bay. They formed a lazy, arcing line of sharks, nose to tail, that went on and on. His eyes were wide as he painted the story and moved his hands through the air to punctuate his statements. His friends called him Paulo. His mother and sister called him Paulito. She took to calling him Lito, which she then shortened to Lit. Didn't seem right to take the name his mother and sister used, and she was far too fond of him to use his proper given name.

He wasn't in his usual spot. That worried her a bit. She hoped it was because he sold all of his catch and returned to his home with money in his pocket and a bit of fish offal wrapped in yesterday's paper for his cat, Gatito. It wouldn't be the first time. The wife of the fisherman in the spot next to Lit's eyed her with open distaste.

She walked on, he would be there the following Sunday, and if he wasn't she would ask on him then. The oyster-monger was her weakness. His wife, Marjorie, was always sweet to her, to the degree that sometimes Annie wondered what she had done before she became a oyster-monger's wife. She bought her usual two oysters, raw with a bit of lemon juice. Marjorie was wicked with an oyster knife and had them open, loose, and resting in their shells before Annie could fish out her dime. She jumped as an arm reached past her to drop a quarter in Marjorie's hand. She immediately relaxed and smiled at the familiar burr near her ear.

"Three more, please."

She did nothing to hide her smile as she took her two oysters and turned to him. "Mr. Bates! Thank you!"

He took his oysters raw as well and naked, as it were, with nothing but the liquor they floated in.

They both nodded their thanks to Marjorie, who smiled a bit too sweetly and busied herself with another customer. He swallowed one of his oysters right away, to better hold the other two and indicated an empty bench a short ways away. "Care to join me?"  
>She found herself nodding and following him before she could think. His limp was a bit more pronounced than it had been.<p>

"Have you ever had Whitby oysters?" he asked when they had settled side by side on the bench with a respectable distance between them. If Peace had said vengeful things about her, Mr. Bates didn't seem to be taking them to heart.

"I have," she chirped with surprising pride. "My father dragged us out there in our cart the one time. We piled together under blankets in the cart that night when he couldn't find us a room. It was some event, some festival. I don't even remember what they were celebrating. Mum was enormous with Alice and it was just us three. And the next day he and I ate all the oysters we could. At three different stalls." She giggled, and then laughed out loud. "Poor Mum had to take the reins all the way home, Da was so sick that afternoon. Of course, he had had more than his share of cider with his oysters."

They laughed together. He sipped at a shell and raised his eyebrows at her. She wasn't sure of his age exactly. She guessed he was easily thirteen or fourteen years her senior, likely more. But when he looked at her like that, with that little half smile, he looked like one of the boys who came to her before their beards had fully grown in. She wanted to stand behind him and put her hands on his shoulders. To touch the close cut hair at the nape of his neck. He was coiffed and pomaded, looking a proper valet gone to run respectable errands. It made her smile. She loved how easy it was to smile and laugh with him. And to fall silent with him. Their silences were usually companionable.

The delicate oyster brine opened and burst with lemon juice on her tongue. Closing her eyes, she enjoyed it. Few other things tasted so perfectly of the ocean. She relished this splurge when it was the months for shellfish. Remembered it had been his splurge, not hers. She wiped her fingers on her handkerchief and made sure they were clean before she touched his sleeve. Let her hand fall with just enough pressure that she could feel him beneath the cloth.

"Thank you again. You didn't need to buy mine."

"Nonsense." His eyes brightened. He winked at her. "It's how one treats a lady."

She rolled her eyes at him, gave him a smirk. Let him smile a bit, really took it in and enjoyed it before she dropped her eyes to her hands and murmured, "Cheeky."

"I think I'll have a few more, fancy another round?

She looked at him, tried to decide if his eyes were grey or green, shook her head, "No. But thank you."

He came back with more for them both. Balancing two oysters in each hand, he smiled, offered one pair to her. "Do me a favor and eat these anyway. I'm my mother's boy; got to make sure everyone is well fed. Humor me."

She nipped at the corner of her mouth and accepted the shellfish graciously. She took her time downing first one, then the other. He had remembered the lemon juice. Must have overheard her order from Marjorie. They ate in silence. She listened to the waves and the gulls, one was eyeing their oyster shells murderously.

Mr. Bates had a strong nose. She had noticed it before, but enjoyed it out of the corner of her eye regardless. It gave him a striking profile. She smiled.

When he finished his oysters, he wiped his own hands clean with a pristine looking pocket square and pulled on first one glove, then the other.  
>"I have two more errands to run, on my way back to the train. Will you perchance be returning to Felton on the 11:45?"<p>

She was planning on staying away from the Garden longer, but found herself nodding.

He smiled. "Well, then. I hope you will save me a seat."

She felt the heat rising in her ears and could only smile and nod. Her eyes followed him as he walked unevenly away. Until he slipped into the throng of people. Then she dropped her head and sighed. This would not end well for either of them.


	3. Fences

At quarter past eleven, Annie approached the train depot partially cradling and partially lugging a piece of driftwood. She had collected it on the beach between the wharves, after Mr. Bates disappeared into the crowd, and now there was sand in her shoes for her trouble. Nearly the entirety of the walk had been spent chiding herself. These were the flutters and sweetnesses of an adolescence long gone. Decidedly best ignored. She wondered if this was part of what had brought on her days' long bout of melancholia and introspection. It made her remember when her future had been before her and her life had had possibilities. She might have...

She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep, slow breath. It didn't matter. She was where she was. Opening them, she squinted at the wide sun-warmed expanse of sandy ground that was the depot. The heat of the sun was lovely, but the lot was far too exposed. Though no one else lingered, people were passing by and she wished to avoid giving the appearance of waiting for someone. If there was anyone aware of the vulnerability of a woman of small stature and no means, it was Annie Lark.

She tucked herself in the shade of a thickly gnarled tree on the seaward side of the open expanse. She remembered how Lit had been selling sculpin the day that he had taught her that the trees flanking the depot and growing along the cliffs on the western end of Santa Cruz were called cypress. He knew most of the names of the animals that surrounded them and some of the plants and trees besides. While she waited for the train, (while she waited for Mr. Bates,) she wrote out the names she could remember in the sandy soil with her driftwood. It was roughly the length of her leg, thick as her thigh at one end and twisting and narrowing to the width of a man's thumb at the other. It was a heavy and ungainly writing instrument, but she rather enjoyed the practice. Vi gave her no end to grief if she worked on her writing at the house. The dark-haired woman went on about her getting above her place, being too good for the rest of them. "You already know how to write, what's the point in perseverating over the thing? No need in all the world for a whore's letters to scroll and swoop like a rich man's wife." At least she didn't criticize Annie when she taught the girls who wanted to learn the skill themselves. Vi felt it was important for everyone to be able to functionally read and write. Teaching the girls was the only real way for Annie to practice.

Nothing was private in the house, which meant there was no way in hell that she could keep any sort of journal and she had no one with whom she could exchange letters. She wasn't sure how to spell most of the names Lit taught her but she did her best to sound them out. The giant sharks were called basking sharks and there were sleek brown sea lions, smaller grey spotted harbor seals, enormous and wrinkled elephant seals, thickly pelted sea otters and so very many different sorts of birds. She didn't remember half of the names Lit had tried to teach her.

She maintained a cautious awareness of the area around her while she added to her list of local flora and fauna in the protective embrace of the cypress. She had learned to look out for herself in her eleven-odd years in America. She had been an innocent fool girl once; she was still paying for it all these years later. She'd be damned if she would let her guard down again. She'd known every sort of man, had been with every sort of man and trusted few of them.

She trusted John Bates, or at least trusted him to mean well and follow his own code, which was nearly the same thing. But then, he was not just any sort of man. A decidedly good thing, she thought, because she was sick to death of men and everything they wanted from her or to do to her.

There were the men who wanted nothing more than to spill their seed and go back to drinking or cards, men who wanted to paw at her and weren't satisfied until she pretended pleasure at their actions, soft men, hard men, cruel men, weeping emotional men. From time to time there were women passing as men, which was a surprising and memorable variation on her life's theme. There were boys trying to be men, old men reliving their youth, men with something to prove, sentimental men, men with a burning need to burden her with their confessions, sweet, homesick men, mama's boys, gentlemen, wealthy men, pompous men, and men that made her skin crawl for no particular reason other than how they looked at her like she was meat.

She had limited patience for the ones who were missing someone, who tried to treat her like a wife or lover they had left behind - like a wife or lover to whom they were supposed to be returning home. It wasn't that she didn't want intimacy or softness. She enjoyed them very much; in her life they were few and far between. It was ... she wasn't quite sure what. The lie of it all, perhaps. The loving touches that weren't directed at her, not really, though she was the recipient of them. Maybe it was a reminder of what she'd lost. She didn't mind being their whore; she had grown to consider it a compassion, a service and a challenge; taking care of these men, seeing through the bravado and the belly-aching and posturing to what it was they really wanted, really needed from her. So many of them were floundering and lost, suffering and homesick; she didn't begrudge them the bit of solace that they found in her smile or nestled between her breasts or legs. She simply didn't like being the replacement.

If she had her druthers they would, for the most part, bend her over and take care of their business quickly. She preferred not having to see them screw their faces up over her, or feel the weight of them crush the air from her lungs while their sweat dripped on her face. She didn't like having to force a smile when they were too fumbling or rough. She didn't like being trapped under them whilst they found their senses, or if they wanted to talk afterwards. She was usually already thinking about how quickly she could get cleaned up and back on the floor, make sure Fern was all right at the bar and that Séam wasn't picking fights unnecessarily as he sometimes was wont to do if he was bored or frustrated. She had Vi to look after and the other girls to tend to and encourage. She made sure that the whiskey was flowing and the mood was pleasing. The girls had a nightly quota to hit or they ended up owing Vi money for room, board, frocks and the likes. Annie preferred not to linger on her back when there were tricks to be turned and work to be tended.

She wished she could say she didn't enjoy any of it, that she took no pleasure in whoring, but the body has a mind of its own sometimes and she had so few pleasures in her life that she set herself free to enjoy those as found her. She had learned to take comfort in what human connections she had - strange, awkward or fleeting as they might be. There were men she very much enjoyed — favorites even — that she looked forward to seeing, though she did nothing to delude herself like some of the other girls did that her relationships to any of her tricks were anything but pleasure bought and sold. Taking her pleasure and enjoying herself when and where she could was another in the long string of lessons Vi taught her that made her life bearable.

Her eyes roamed over the bright open landscape of the depot, taking in people that passed through and a small group of wealthy-looking Big Tree tourists that gathered in a cluster. She couldn't yet see him and loosed a sigh. She needed to find a way to make him see just how misplaced his affections were. The train ride would give her time to make him see sense. Making up her mind, she was determined that she would spare him what she could. He was too dear to her for anything less.

Then she saw him approaching the depot and wearing a half smile. The sort a child affects when he has a secret. He strolled toward the other idling would-be passengers. She felt a pang as she watched him scan the area for her and his smile slip away when he failed to see her through the arms of the cypress. He looked lost. The slight change in his limp worried her, but she daredn't ask on it. She tried to fit an easy smile to her face, then straightened her shoulders, girded herself to face him and pushed through the branches that obscured her.

He noticed the movement and turned his head in her direction. His face lit brightly when he saw her. All her plans slipped away on the breeze as he strode unevenly over to meet her, a parcel neatly wrapped in brown paper tucked under his arm. Too small to be clothes, too big to be jewelry, not the right shape for cigars. Books, perhaps. For the Duke, she supposed. She didn't guess that Mr. Bates would take the train all this way on an errand for himself. He noticed the driftwood she carried and tilted his head slightly, bemused. She smirked and shrugged.

He touched the brim of his hat as they converged nearer the tracks. He seemed a bit bashful, the boyish joy in his expression melding into something else. His eyes stayed on her; she could feel his gaze, like a touch, or a burn. She couldn't think of anyone ever making her feel that way just in how they looked at her. She tried to decide if his eyes were more grey or more green.

"Do you often carry branches with you, Miss Lark?" he asked with a grin.

"As a matter of fact, I do." She raised her eyebrows at him and laughed. "It's for the garden. Not _the_ Garden, but our vegetable garden out back. I am determined to erect a fence of sorts, to mark off my beds in effort to discourage drunkards who occasionally wander back that way. I have a growing pile awaiting construction."

"An excellent and artful choice to use driftwood." He nodded, his eyes glinting. "It will stand out at night, as pale as it is. Shall I avail myself to you when the time comes? I don't know how useful I would be, but I can dig a post hole as well as the next person and should be happy to help."

She didn't know what to say to that. Wasn't sure she trusted herself to speak for a moment she felt such a swelling of affection for him.

"Were your errands agreeable, Mr. Bates?" she asked before she could blurt out something ridiculous and tried unsuccessfully to keep her own smile in check. It was a safe topic at the very least, the agreeableness of errands and such.

"Indeed they were, Miss Lark. Thank you." He stepped a touch closer. Just a touch. Still a very respectable distance, she noted. He always kept a respectable distance. He lowered his voice and dipped his head slightly, though the only other people around milled a ways away, and gave her a warm smile. "Not so agreeable as the prospect of your company."

She stiffened slightly at his guileless sincerity. Why did he have to say such things?

"With as much as I natter on, you're like to regret that statement before we're halfway up the mountainside." She said the words with a smile, but her jest rang hollow. He frowned and opened his mouth to speak, but stopped, for the train chuffed into the station, announcing its approach with twelve resoundingly loud double blows of its horn as it chugged and hissed to a slow squealing stop.

Coming from anyone else, his words would have set her teeth on edge and caused her to immediately swing back with any of a hundred quips she used to cut overly solicitous jacks down to size. From his throat, they rang with such honesty they left her aching. When he spoke to her like that, she knew what sort of a lover he would be. She could feel it in the consideration he showed her, the respect with which he treated her, the soft smokiness of the tone he took with her, the tentative way he spoke to her sometimes. The playfulness in their banter and the strength that rode a silent current beneath his skin informed her of exactly how attentive he would be, how focused and driven and passionate. It drew a sensation up from the pit of her belly that frightened her with its enormity. She tamped it down, needed to rid herself of such thoughts. It didn't help when he stepped closer still or when he fit his hand protectively to the slope of her upper back. She failed to fight off the shiver that coursed through her at the contact. He was silent until the ruckus died down.

"I meant that with no irony, Annie. Miss Lark." He leaned close enough that she could feel his words stir the hair behind her ear.

"I know, Mr. Bates," she spoke gently. "You never would."

She looked at him then, really looked at him. She tried to pour all of her apologies into him with her eyes alone, hoped he could see that she took no offense, hoped he would understand why she had to push him away. He deserved that much, when everything he did and said was so very dear. When he was so very dear.

He turned a bit red and motioned her to ascend the steps of the train ahead of him. She drew a last breath of salt-tinged air deep into her lungs, nodded her thanks and continued with her thought: "It would do you well to mean it with every bit of irony you can muster."

Silent, he offered her his hand to help her onto the steps as though she were a proper lady. He didn't respond to her words but his frown deepened; his distress was clear. Shifting the driftwood under her left arm, she accepted the gesture, the leather of his gloves felt warm and alive under her bare fingers. She held her composure, despite the way he looked at her. He could hold his face so impassively when he needed to, but not just then. It opened a sort of hole inside her, an ancient ache she had forgotten, or never noticed before that moment: she wasn't sure which. She forced herself to hold his gaze as she passed him. Tried to keep her own expression gentle, her tone kind. "I'm sorry," she said, with slow unblinking earnestness. "But it's true."

She could feel his eyes on her back as she climbed the four steep steps; as she moved deeper into the train car to seek a seat. Snugging herself into a cloth-covered bench seat in the far left corner of the car, she didn't know if she should wish for him to sit next to her or pray he did not. He shouldn't sit with her at all. What if someone told the Earl, what then? He approached down the aisle, his expression a mask again of dignity and calm unreadability.

As it was, she couldn't be sure if her prayer was answered or ignored when he chose the seat next to her. He was so close to her, but at least they wouldn't be staring at one another with his concern palpable between them for the duration of the hour long trip.  
>She turned her head to regard him. "You are entirely too kind to me, Mr. Bates. I wish you weren't."<p>

A pair of loggers, one broad-chested and squat, and one tall and spindly, entered behind them. She had taken note of them. She didn't know their names, but had seen them both before - she was fairly sure they helped Miss Minnie from time to time - and they seemed harmless enough. Paying for too much exuberance the night before, it would seem. The jacks ignored them, intent on nursing their hangovers quietly and from a flask passed between them.

Mr. Bates relaxed slightly. "Oh? Why do you say that?"

"You are far too fine a man to squander valuable time on someone like me."

He chuckled softly. "Shouldn't I have some say in how I squander my valuable time? It is my own, after all." A pleased looking smirk slid over his face.

She frowned and felt the air rush out of her. She lowered her voice so that he leaned in to hear her. "It's not your own time, though, is it. What you do reflects on your reputation, which reflects on the reputation of Duke. It's one thing to pay for services rendered." She colored at her own words. She hadn't meant for him to have to lean in like he did. He was so close to her and all shorn and smooth, oiled and polished, looking every bit the gentleman's valet. She could see a spot on his neck where his collar chaffed his skin. Miss Minnie would have a cream or salve for that. She kept her voice low. "It is an entirely different thing to be seen with me like this, respectable man like you. People up at camp are starting to notice that we visit with each other from time to time. Who knows what sorts of things they'll start saying?"

"I don't give a fig what anyone but you has to say on the matter," he whispered. "Your good opinion is my sole concern."

She chanced a glance at him and regretted it, could read the love on his face like she could read words chalked on a slate. Tears burned hot at the back of her throat. She swallowed them. Swallowed back the strange ache. Willed her heart to stop pounding so fast and loud in her ears. She fixed her gaze on the window and tried to harden herself to the task. There was a wee spider fussing in the lower corner of the wooden sill, fastidiously spinning gossamer fine, barely-there threads of silk into the smallest of webs.

"You mustn't say that, Mr. Bates," she rasped, holding her voice as steady as she could, which was nowhere near steady enough. "In this, my opinion is the one thing that doesn't matter."

Gratitude washed over her when he stayed silent and let the issue drop. Still, she needed something safe to think about, safe to look at. She focused on the minute arachnid and how single-mindedly that it tended to its task. She worried suddenly about what would happen to it when workers cleaned the car. It concerned her that it spun it's web with such blind diligence; methodically fulfilling it's one task, oblivious to the tenuous existence it lived. Not knowing it would be crushed and wiped away when the train car was cleaned. This silly thought hit her like a sandbag, tugging hard at her tears. She ran her palm absently over the driftwood and stared at that for a bit until her emotions settled themselves back down. Then he shifted and settled the package he carried on his lap; it seemed a solid enough place to lay her attentions.

"What have you got there? Books for the Duke?" She blushed and looked at her hands, hearing how the words sounded as she spoke them. "Sorry. That was rude. Me mum would have swatted me for being forward and nosy."

He laughed. "I don't mind. It just means you are curious and clever."

She laughed out loud, her body relaxing a bit, the edge of her emotions smoothed over. "How do you figure clever?"

His eyes sparkled, his smile lighting them. She was distracted by a flush of warmth low in her belly. More and more she found herself thinking of him while she was with certain men. Older men, of a particular build, or soft spoken men with strong hands. She wasn't proud of it, but it was what it was. It teased such a different layer of sensation from her, an intensity to her climaxes that she hadn't experienced before. Part of her felt like she should be ashamed of thinking of him like this, especially when she was with other men, but she had so many things in her life of which she was genuinely ashamed that she couldn't bring herself to really regret it. His voice pulled her out of her decidedly inappropriate thoughts.

"It is a clever guess that they are books and for His Lordship." He spoke brightly, "Of course you are clever, you would have to be; I imagine you think and talk your way through all manner of situation in your line of work." He blushed then and sat a bit more rigidly, as if realizing what he had said; the full extent of her work likely dawning on him.

She let her gaze slide over the wood-grain of the windowsill again, the tenuous cheer having evaporated. The spider had tucked itself away somewhere; she could only find its web. Perhaps it had a chance after all. She felt a strange sense of strength rise within her with this revelation and despite her shame, composed her thoughts for a moment and spoke. "I hope you don't imagine too much," she admitted. "I wouldn't care to have you think too closely on what I do, Mr. Bates. I wouldn't care to have that or anything you found out about me color your opinion."

It was as forward as she could bring herself to be about Peace Boothe. From his expression she gathered that he understood her meaning. He shook his head.

"I shouldn't care what I found out about you. It wouldn't change my opinion of you," he said. "Not one bit." Though the words were spoken softly, his conviction was strong.

She eyed him doubtfully but stayed silent, not really trusting herself to speak. He looked at her for a long time with such tenderness, so long she had to turn her gaze to the window, the seat facing them, her hands, anywhere and everywhere but to him.

"It would," she whispered. "It most certainly would."

She took a steadying breath. Thankfully, her eyes remained dry. He had such an effect on her. She could feel it in her bones, in her gut and it frightened her. It reminded her of years ago when their horse spooked and her mother lost control of the cart for a time. Trapped in a situation bigger than herself, she had been literally along for the ride. It had been terrifying, but maybe a bit exhilarating too. Fortunately she had the presence of mind to help her mother rein in their horse and together they prevailed and brought the beast under control. Alice had been asleep in the back the entire time. She startled when his fingers touched, then cupped her hand where it lay on the seat between them.

"Miss Lark, I know your profession is not who you are," his words sounded rough, faraway.

Taking slow, controlled breaths seemed the only thing in the world she could do. She found she still couldn't look at him, not really. Only in starts and glances out the corner of her eye. She felt a slight ping or a pop somewhere deep inside of herself; like ice or glass that starts to fracture. Turning her hand in his she wove her fingers into his grasp.

"Thank you for that," she said definitively. She found their hands a steadying place to rest her gaze. "I shan't soon forget it."

They let the train's rhythmic swaying, the sounds of metal and wood groaning and knocking, and the soft keening of the wheels on the rails fill the silence for a time. They both held on tightly to the other's hand and the steam engine chugged up the curving grade.

When she could look at him again, she smiled broadly, "You never told me about the Duke's books. If I may ask?"

He gave her hand a squeeze, before letting go of it to pull the twine and unfold the brown paper. "They're mine. But you were right to think they were the _Earl's_. I didn't make the trip down for them. His Lordship needed a few new pairs of cuff links. The bookstore was simply a pleasant addition to the journey."

She bit back her smirk. His attention was focused upon the book, so she let her gaze linger on his profile. She knew Lord Grantham's proper title full well. The patience and pointedness with which Mr. Bates said "_the Earl" _simply tickled her beyond measure. To the slightly wicked degree that she made a point of only ever referring to his employer as "the Duke" in Mr. Bates' presence. It delighted and distracted her from herself that Mr. Bates had in fact not disappointed on this particular occasion. She chided herself again. She was supposed to be pushing him away and instead she was forgetting herself and getting swept up in his unassuming sweetness. She caught herself justifying how it would hurt nothing to simply be a friend to him, to let him continue to be a friend to her. Then he turned to her and caught her looking at him and her breath went ragged in her throat. She could never be just a friend to him, and he was already more than a friend to her, and she knew it. He smiled gently and ducked his head towards his lap.

Annie cooed, completely distracted and unable to contain her delight. Two of the newest books she had ever seen this side of a store window were spread out on the crisp brown paper. "You are indeed a wise man Mr. Bates," she enthused. "A book is always money well spent. I've heard of Twain, but not read him. I don't know of Frederick Douglass, though."

"He is a freed slave; this is his memoir. I imagine it will be difficult to read at times. I don't relish the prospect of learning of the atrocities committed against him, but some stories need to be told regardless of how hard they are to hear or read. Hence _The Prince and the Pauper_. The levity of that should prove a needed contrast. I find that I am very much enjoying the American literary perspective; it is quite a refreshing change. Do you read, Miss Lark?"

She straightened a bit in her seat and smiled. "And write. And I balance the ledgers for Vi. My father was a teacher. He felt it was important. An education. Despite my being a girl. I read all the time when I was young. Now I read whatever newspapers I find left in the barroom or the girls' rooms and teach whomever of the girls as wants to learn."

He smiled. "Your father sounds like a wise man."

"He was, in some ways." She nodded. "In others..."

"Didn't know when he'd had enough oysters and cider?"

She tried to keep her smile cheerful and not wistful. "Amongst other things."

"Do you have many books?" he asked.

"No. Four. Well, five counting the Bible. But that one isn't properly mine. It sort of floats about the house. Some of the girls like to hear passages on Sundays. "

"You read to them?"

She nodded, her hackles raising instantly and instinctively. "They've as much a right to the word of the Lord as anyone," she stated, sounding defensive and prickly to her own ears.

"Yes. Of course. It's good they have you to read it to them." His tone stayed warm and gentle, his eyes kind, and she blushed.

"I'm sorry. Not everyone is quite so understanding, Mr. Bates," she murmured, embarrassed by her reaction, remembering the sneer on Verdeline Kant's face when she was being antagonistically and vociferously judgemental the time she had passed by the Garden and overheard Annie reading to the girls on a quiet Sunday. "There are those who believe we have no business attending services or reading the Bible."

"I can imagine," he gave her another one of those soft-eyed looks before settling back into his seat. She watched him run his fingers over the cover of the novel and wondered what it would be like to listen to him read. Stopping herself immediately, she shuddered at the flood of feelings that poured out of that thought. She was doing a miserable job pushing him away.

"Miss Lark?"

She fixed her smile and glanced at him expectantly.

"I have acquired a bit of a collection of books just in the time I have been in America. If you wish, you would be most welcome to borrow them from time to time."

Her head snapped up and her eyes went wide. It took her a moment to find her breath and her words. When she did, they all came at once. "Do you mean it? Truly? You wouldn't mind? I'd take ever such good care of any that you leant me."

He chuckled and grinned broadly. "I know you would. I would delight in having a reading partner to discuss them with."

There was nothing she could do to still the smile that erupted across her face. She giggled and rolled her eyes at him. "I very much doubt I will have anything meaningful to add to a book discussion."

"I beg to differ. Something tells me that your perspective will be rather refreshing and intelligent."

He picked up and offered her the more light-hearted of the two volumes. _The Prince and the Pauper_. She cocked her head, eyes widening and then narrowing. Frowning, she looked from the volume to him and back. It was so beautiful; so crisp and unmarred. "But it's your new book. You haven't read it yet, yourself."

He smiled broadly for a moment, "I'll read this one and by the time I've finished, you will have returned the Twain to me."

She wiped her hands on her skirt before she took it from him and ran her fingertips over the gilding on the cover. There was a glowing warmth in her chest that bloomed and swelled. She fumbled for words, could only hold it reverently and manage a tight, roughly whispered, "Thank you."

"Sharing your insights on and opinions of it with me will be thanks enough." He didn't smile enough. She loved his smile. Then a thought hit her. "Oh, but might I take the paper too? I would hate to smudge your new book before you had a go at it."

"Of course, here," he said, handing it to her. He flashed his teeth again; his smile was so broad. "You needn't worry, though. A well worn book is a beautiful thing, it just shows how many times it's been read and how well it's been cherished." Then his expression changed and he cocked his head. "I'd like to do something for you, if you'll let me."

She looked at him guardedly. Felt a sudden knot in her stomach. Knew some ridiculously sweet gesture was going to be made and steadied herself for it. He was making this so very hard. She was far too weak when it came to him; had grown much too fond. She never should have agreed to ride the train back.

He took his gloves off one by one, tugging the fingertips. He pulled a little leather kit from his pocket, unfastened the ties and unrolled it. It was a wee sewing kit. She smiled, it was such an incongruous thing to see in his large and graceful hands. He held one of those long-fingered hands out to her; a silent request for her own. She frowned but offered her hand anyway. Then he produced a small spool of blue thread, held it to her sleeve, and grinned. "Perfect. I just needed to see if I matched it well."

And she knew what he was going to offer. It drew up such a sudden and peculiar combination of surging emotions from her, (not the least of which was a deep and abiding shame,) that she didn't know where to look or what to say. She felt sick at the stomach. Her skin burned and was likely a vibrant shade of red. She pulled her arm sharply away from him. Wished desperately to disappear, that she had decided to go looking for Lit, that she was anywhere but with this unendingly sweet man.

"Oh, no, Miss Lark! Annie, please, I intended no insult. I apologize. I merely noticed ... I thought ..." His brow knit and his hand covered hers where it rested on her leg. "I'm so sorry. It's just that I'm quite good at mending these sorts of things. Tricks of the trade and all, being a valet. The Earl is forever putting holes in his finest attire."

Her eyes glanced off of him and she held the paper wrapped book tightly to her chest. She swallowed hard, felt tears burn hot behind her eyes. She fought to blink them away before they began.

"If you would allow me to try, I'll show you." He touched a poorly mended split. She felt his warmth through the fabric. "When I'm done you won't see the rips if you don't know to look for them."

Despite it being one of the dearest things he could offer, she was mute from the embarrassment of all.

"If you like, I can teach you? You can watch me mend this now." He ran his finger over the seam of her right cuff. "Then when you aren't wearing it ... I mean ... when you are wearing something else." He stumbled over his words and the accidental innuendo in the most disarming of ways. His color rose yet again and she found herself far more concerned about his discomfort; it was that easy to forget her own when it came to him. He covered his mouth with his open hand and rubbed his chin and jaw nervously. "When ... When it isn't in use and you are not indisposed, we could work on it together."

She looked skeptical, but his unease and his shift in tack managed to thaw her back to motion and speech. She couldn't accept his charity, but she could accept a new skill. "Can you really mend on a moving train?" she finally asked.

"You'd be surprised." He chuckled. His eyes were warm, relieved, the lines that fanned out from their corners deepened with his smile. A smile that was so hopeful she couldn't help but return it.

"Here." He nodded. "Give me your arm."

Annie relaxed a bit and uncurled it into his waiting hands. He turned his knees towards her and shuffled a touch closer, so that her arm rested comfortably on the warm solidity of his thigh. He settled her hand palm up and touched the button of her cuff; silently seeking out her permission. He waited until she nodded to unfasten it and then folded the sleeve up her arm, turning the seam of the cuff inside out before he set to work. She watched him closely, hoping that she might be able to learn the skill just through observation and avoid further entanglements. The book was bad enough. She should have refused the book, should have refused this. The closer she watched him, the more she knew she would need his guidance to repeat the task on her own. She felt more than a little sick.

He took care to hold her or move her arm, she noticed, only by her hand or where it was covered by her sleeve. He avoided touching her exposed forearm as much as he could. She rolled her eyes at him when he wasn't looking. Ever the gentleman. Bent studiously over her arm, he lay stitch after tiny stitch as the train swayed on the tracks. He furrowed his brow and pressed his lips together in concentration. Occasionally the pink tip of his tongue would part them while he focused. It made her want to touch his face. Made her want to tilt his chin toward her and kiss him. She hadn't wanted to kiss anyone in so long she couldn't remember the last time and she clenched her teeth. These were dangerous thoughts. Thoughts best tamped down and ignored. Even if doing so gave her a headache and made the back of her throat burn and tighten. He spent the rest of the lolling trip picking out her clumsy stitches and replacing them with small, neat, nearly-invisible ones of his own. He held remarkably steady in the moving car.

He was right; when he had finished and buttoned her sleeve, it looked nearly new. She couldn't see the seam unless she looked for it. Other tears would prove more difficult to mend and she relished the prospect of learning how to correct them even as she tried to work out what to say to him. And then the train hissed its blow down; at the head of the line of cars a great plume of steam - the blow-off - burst from a valve on the left side of the engine. Annie needed to find some way to establish boundaries, to erect more than a bit of fencing, if they were to be friends. As if they could be friends. It was bad enough they had been seen talking together. The whistle blasted loudly again as they rolled to a noisy stop in the Felton depot. The two jacks shuffled promptly from the car, eager to get wherever they were going.

He helped her out of her seat. Of course he would help her. He also held the door of the car for her, while she juggled her driftwood and the book. She took his hand in hers and stood close to him for a moment, loathe to descend the steps of the train and let the reality of her life pick back up. Besides, she had to say something to him. Had to dissuade him somehow.

"Might I walk you back to the Garden, Miss Lark?"

She scowled at him for the interruption and the foolish request. "It wouldn't do for your employer to hear you were walking through the middle of town with a prostitute on your arm."

"I would be walking with a friend on my arm." He held her gaze for a moment before glancing at the driftwood, and fighting a smirk. "A friend and her branch."

She couldn't suppress her delight at his insistence, didn't try, but she also couldn't let him win this time. "You'd be walking with a friend, yes," she said. Then she softened her voice and looked him square in the eye. "A friend who is a known whore."

His cheer evaporated. "That's an ugly word."

She sighed and smiled sadly up at him, not exactly pleased to have finally made an impression, but satisfied that she had inserted some reality between them. "It may be, but it's the truth, Mr. Bates. It's what I am. Besides, don't you have the Duke's horse? I assumed you would have him at the stables here for your ride back."

He nodded, still frowning. "I do at that."

She regarded him, kept smiling and rolled her eyes, "Go claim your employer's horse, you can't keep him waiting. It's s a small town, Mr. Bates, I'll see you soon enough." She tightened her grip on the driftwood and the paper-wrapped book and beamed. "I'll be needing to get your book back to you."

He chuckled, his frown smoothed away. "Keep it as long as you like. Thank you for your company today."

"Thank you, Mr. Bates. As I said earlier, you are too kind to me," she said.

"I don't know if you go to Santa Cruz on the train often, but I was thinking I might explore the area a bit more next Sunday morning. It seems a pleasant, relatively quiet time for it."

She looked at him incredulously. Shook her head. "Go get that fancy Egyptian horse, Mr. Bates. Thank you, again." She forced herself to turn away from him and descended the steep wooden steps with care and attention.

"Perhaps I shall see you then?" he asked after her.

She didn't glance back. A small victory. "_Good afternoon_, Mr. Bates."

She walked as directly back to the Garden as she could. She skirted the building and walked out back to deposit her driftwood onto the pile. She'd only just rounded the pile when she found she couldn't hold herself in any longer. She stopped and took deep, calming breaths for a bit while she was out of sight of everyone. If anything she was worse off now, because she was possessed of a borrowed book that she would need to return. The reminder made her heart pound rapidly. She had a new book to read. The finest and most beautiful book she had ever held. She hugged it to her chest and hitched the driftwood higher on the pile and continued to linger behind the whorehouse listening for signs of disgruntled life within. It was shockingly calm inside. She was a bit surprised that Vi's voice couldn't be heard.

She passed through the rear doors and poked her head into the kitchen, nodding her greeting at Dawn. "She not up yet?" she asked.

Dawn threw her flour coated hands up. "You know how she is. Heard her stirring a while ago and sent Daphne up to see what she wanted and she threw a shoe at the girl."

Annie frowned. "Sorry Dawn. I'll talk to her about it. And I'll talk to Daphne about it, too. Girl is too sweet for her own good."

"Sounds like a little bird I know," Dawn grinned and pushed her over a plate of scrambled eggs. A moment later she rounded the counter and spooned cold, day-old chard, seasoned with vinegar next to the eggs.

"Thank you, love. After I eat, I'll take her up some tea and toast. She's like to be hung over something fierce." She wasted no time tucking in. "Do we have any rosehips left? Miss Minnie said they are good for tea when you overtax yourself or are getting sick, I'd say drinking like a fish until three in the goddamned morning counts as both of those."

* * *

><p>"Get yer ass in here and warm mine," Vi grumped when Annie pushed in a half hour later, belly pleasantly full, carrying the tray of tea. Vi was always cold in the morning.<p>

She smiled at Vi, unpinned her good hat and clambered into the bed with her. She curled around her sour-smelling body and settled against her softness.

"It's about blooming time you woke your sorry self up," she grinned, tickling Vi's side.

"Christ keep your fucking hands to yourself, they're like ice!"

Annie giggled and spread a hand flat on Vi's belly and the woman squawked and cursed and elbowed her. Annie didn't care; it had been a lovely morning. Despite her failure to do any real dissuading.

"Brought you some tea with honey and some toast with Miss Minnie's blackberry preserves," she chirped purposefully loud and with exaggerated cheer. When Vi swiped at her again, clumsy with sleep, she smirked. "Daph will bring up the coffee in a few minutes when it's fresh. You need to stop bullying her. She's a good girl, even if she is a bit lost with the jacks." Annie found that she had entirely stopped calling them johns. Even in her thoughts. She hated that his name was John. But it couldn't have been any other name.

"I'll stop bullying her when she finds her damn wits and learns to stop tripping on herself."

"I'm fairly sure throwing things at her won't cure her of that." She burrowed into the bed and spooned against Vi as the older woman grumbled, gathered her wits and her consciousness, and slowly wove the two about herself. Annie wasn't sure if she was Vi's favorite, or if the woman just gave her more leeway because she was tired of balancing the figures. She was fairly sure that Vi loved her, in her cantankerous, foul-mouthed, charred and pickled way. It was a strange business, knowing she belonged to Vi, was in effect, Vi's property, and finding that as much as she wanted to be free of this life, she also loved the fat old cow, for all her faults and bitter messes.

She tightened herself against Vi's back. She could sink into it all and stew or she could find a way to float over the top of it all. And being bitter and angry wasn't what she wanted. Even though she was so bitter and so angry sometimes that she could taste it in her throat. She closed her eyes and sighed. Did her best to float. The breeze that blew in through the open window was cool and carried the sun warmed scent of redwoods with it. She lay quietly her eyes closed, not quite dozing when Vi finally rose for the day and started clattering about the tea tray and coughing and clearing her throat. There was a new book hiding at the very back and bottom of the wardrobe she shared with Fern. Crisp and untouched. She sighed and fell into a half sleep in the afternoon light.

* * *

><p>AN: Bugs was an amazing beta for this chapter! Thanks my arthropodiacal friend.


	4. Bridge

_Wednesday, 10 May 1882_

_She did not meet me on Sunday, as I had allowed myself to imagine she might. I waited for her until the stationmaster called us aboard. I decided to go anyway, hoping perhaps she had taken an earlier train to preserve her notion of my honor. Seeking out the oyster-monger, I bought and ate a handful of oysters from his cheerful wife and lingered there for a bit. When it became clear I would not see her, I walked along the line of stalls and curios. The sound of the gulls and the waves over the din of people was comforting, as was the salt air. I had planned on visiting a ladies boutique, a shop that sold hats and gloves. Instead I found an older woman who was making and selling leather goods. She had been perched on a stack of wooden crates, intently boring needle holes in a leather strip. I have always enjoyed observing craftspeople engrossed in their work and so I watched her. Then she looked at me with eyes like the night sky, deep black and unending. Her smile held more spaces than teeth. Her cheekbones were round and strong, and the skin stretched over them was wrinkled and weathered; the rich color of caramelized sugar. She was perhaps one of the most beautiful souls I have ever seen. I remember thinking that, and how soft and sentimental I have gone._

_She spoke no English and I, no Spanish. We had an extended and animated exchange of gestures, smiles, and grimaces in which I described my needs and she showed me her wares. It was easy enough to get to gloves, but to find a size and style that were appropriate was a bit more challenging. In the end I chose a sensible pair. They are pliant and strong, soft as butter and the color of sand. They should serve Annie well on her trips into town. I hope I have purchased an appropriate size. They seem so very small, but then, so are her hands. I do not like to think of her out without gloves to warm those hands; they were so very cold when they were in mine._

_I fear that she will not accept them, for she is as proud as I._

_I brought a book with me as well. I assumed she would at the very least be amenable to the loan of another book. After all, it was not a gift. Nothing had prepared me for the way she shone when I handed her that Mark Twain novel. As of late it seems that her smiles are the source of most of my joy. The ones I have caused are all the more precious._

_I hope I did not push too far to see those smiles during our train-ride up from Santa Cruz last week. In my mind's eye, I can picture the ways she regarded me. I felt her gaze then most viscerally and I am ashamed of how it affects me even now, especially now in the solitude of this cabin where there is so little to distract my thoughts. I dared not delude myself that she could look on me with the same depths of desire and affection that I feel for her. But the way her gaze lingered on me when she thought I was paying no mind, the way she holds me at arms' length; I am beginning to suspect (though I am afraid to hope) that her behavior is not entirely because of her concern for me and my reputation._

_It's odd. But the more I think of Annie Lark, the more I long to hear the cadence of my mother's voice. I feel foolish committing these words to paper, for the one does not at all remind me of the other. Except perhaps in their stubbornness and determination. And the patient way they each have of regarding me when I have said something foolish._

_Tonight she opened her throat like her feathered namesake and sang. She is so very lovely, my sweet, little lark._

His pen had scratched over the paper and it helped a little. He wasn't quite used to this fountain pen. Nights like this he missed the dipping and tapping; the bursts of rich, saturated letters followed by brittle dry scratch marks, the need to stop and catch another droplet of ink in the nib and retrace the pen's path. Not every modernization was necessarily a complete improvement. It nearly comforted him. The slivers under his fingernails smarted. His ankle hurt. It always hurt, but it hurt more lately. He felt old. More so when he remembered how his desire grew as he watched her. She had been shining in the lamplight, painfully beautiful, and as always just out of his reach.

The week had been dragging slowly past. Since their morning together, nearly two weeks prior, Annie Lark seemed to be making herself decidedly scarce during the times that he was usually passing through town. He satisfied himself with the sound of her laughter floating out into the darkness as he passed by the Garden. He could pick her voice out of the din easily. Riding along, earlier that night he had wondered at how quiet the Garden seemed until her sweet soprano rang out through the cool air. He reined in Pharaoh and eased the cherry bay gelding over so that he could watch from the street. It was a ballad, an old song that he recognized from his childhood. It told a story about a clever cabin boy who was nearly betrayed and drowned by his own captain. His aunt used to sing it for him. He couldn't think of the title, at first. Then recalled that it was the ship's name. The Sweet Kumadee. He'd forgotten how pleased the twist at the end had made him when he was a young. The cabin boy outsmarted the captain and claimed his reward; the captain's daughter, amongst other things. It wasn't a sad song, but she was stood solemn on the bar, her hands at her sides, her eyes closed, sounding mournful. Most everyone in the Garden had their heads bowed; some had removed their hats.

Gossip had gone the rounds about a rail worker who had been crushed that day when a load of railroad ties toppled onto him. The song must be for him. John took off his own hat and held it to his chest out of respect.

When Annie was done, he heard Vi call out, "He loved that damn song! Half-price shots for the next fifteen minutes in honor of good old Half-Assed Sam!"

A cheer erupted and business returned to normal. With the help of the two nearest patrons, Annie hopped off of the bar and disappeared into the crowd. He waited for a moment, willing her to come outside for air, knowing all the while that she wouldn't.

The song followed him and Pharaoh up the mountain. He was still singing it softly to himself even after he wrote in his journal, after he wrote to his mother, when he settled down on his modest bed. The bed was far too short for his comfort, yet he had not gotten around to making a new frame. The simple rope and wood construction was not beyond his limited skills, but he only ever thought of it when he was lying down and trying to rest.

Sleep would not come that night. Even after two shots too many. He had been using less and less laudanum and was at the bottom limit of his tolerance. Any less and he shook and sweated and felt sick. It meant he was drinking a bit more whiskey, but he was trying to limit that, too. His elixir at the moment, the only thing that pulled him out of his aches and frustrations enough to relax into the arms of sleep were thoughts of her. Tonight it was the memory of the lamplight shadowing her collar bone, the sweet purity of her singing and the swell of her breasts when she inhaled sharply at the interval between verses.

Thursday morning came early and with it the not so distant sounds of dynamite and shattering rock. Closer by he could hear men shouting and arguing and the woodpecker sounds of the jacks that worked at the split stuff installation that fed the cooperage and kilns. He had written to his mother about how close he was to the piles of split stuff; that the axes splitting kiln kindling and boards for barrels tended to lull him to sleep at night and wake him in the mornings. He couldn't readily tell her what really lulled him to sleep.

The nights were still chilly and the early morning air tended to be damp and cold. He groaned when he sat up. His head pounded and his entire right leg ached; the way he walked to favor his ankle was wrecking havoc with his knee and hip. He stretched and quickly built a fire in his small stone fireplace; pushed water over it for tea. While the tea water was boiling he went out and round to the small enclosed stall he had built against the side of the cabin. It was just enough protection from the elements, with just enough room for one of the horses. He tried to ride them equally, but found he favored Pharaoh. Isis was young and both over-zealous and over-sensitive. She needed a slightly more patient hand than he gave her. He would leave Pharaoh in the cool dark of the livery tonight and ride Isis up to his cabin. If he was being honest, it was getting harder and harder to mount the horse. He had to lower the stirrup before he mounted, then cinch it back up once he was in the saddle. Especially on the taller bay. He freshened his and Pharaoh's water buckets from the creek twenty paces away, and went in to take the kettle off the fire. He poured a bit of water into his small ceramic tea pot. He had purchased it and a tiny cup without a handle from a shop in Santa Cruz's chinatown. It was very inexpensive, only thirty cents, and served his meager needs. He liked the grain of the cup and the dark glaze. He also liked the tea he bought there. Oolong. Richly flavored. Strong.

He brought the kettle out to Pharaoh and poured a bit of hot water over the horse's morning grains to make a mash. He gave him some hay from the pile next to the stall and limped back inside to wash and enjoy his tea.

He was coordinating falls the next morning, so today he was set to ride around to the sites and plot out the direction the tree needed to be felled. It was best for the behemoths to fall uphill and onto a stand of smaller trees so as to not shatter their massive trunks under their own weight and momentum. He enjoyed days like this, strategizing and admiring the landscape, it was a very pleasant part of the job, and relatively painless. Coop had decided he was perfectly capable of doing it himself and left him to it.

It had struck him on more than one occasion how the mountains were being stripped of the trees that made them unique in the world. The very stone itself was cooked and carted away. He wondered what would happen when they came to the end of the supply of trees. Wondered how long they could keep blowing up the mountainside for the lime works.

At half past ten, when he was satisfied that he had calculated out the angles and trajectories of the trees in question, he reined the richly colored gelding down the mountainside to tend the Earl. In the stately quiet of Downton the man was an early riser, but with carousing happening until the wee hours of the morning, he tended to sleep until well into the day.

Mr. Bates guided the bay horse down along Fall Creek and when he found the road he only rode for a few minutes before he happened upon Miss Minnie. She was trudging downhill next to a ancient looking sorrel horse that pulled her equally ancient looking though brightly painted cart. She looked him over and grinned. He touched his hat and bade her a good day.

"You are the Duke's man; Mr. Bates?" she asked. It was a statement more than a question, though.

"Yes, the Earl is my employer."

"I have something for you." Miss Minnie didn't stop walking but wiped her hands on her apron and pulled a pale-blue glass jar with a cork stopper from her apron pocket. She raised it up to him and he leaned over slightly to accept it.

"I think you must be mistaken. I haven't placed an order or purchased anything. Did the Earl…?"

"Oh, it's from Annie. She was telling me that your limp has been getting a touch worse lately and thought you might benefit from some of my arnica rub."

He furrowed his brow. "She hadn't mentioned it. How much do I owe you?"

"Annie took care of that end of things." She smiled, then raised her eyebrows. "You'll want to massage it into the ankle, knee, and hip in the morning and before going to bed. Anywhere else you have pains. Personally I like to wrap it with a warm rag after I use it on my elbow and wrists. Helps with arthritis too."

John's frown deepened. "Thank you, but…"

"If your ankle or leg is troubling you," Miss Minnie interrupted, "you should come by my place sometime and let me give you a proper once over. I may be able to help a bit."

He began to stutter in embarrassment, which she spoke over.

"Does no good to anyone to be stubborn and proud around such things." She lowered her voice. "That damn town doctor will only look at you if you can pay and will likely just feed you laudanum at that, no matter their ailment. Besides, it'll do Annie good knowing you're being tended to; she's been fretting over it. She is fond of you, you know."

The way she said it brooked no misinterpretation. He held her gaze and nodded. "I am fond of her," he responded truthfully and without hesitation.

"She is a good girl, our Annie. She deserves to have someone looking out for her in this world."

The so-called witch-woman's words made his neck and cheeks burn, made him deliriously happy. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the tissue and brown paper wrapped gloves. (He had known that a box would have been too much. Instead he had stopped at the mercantile and bought a length of blue ribbon. An extra nickel convinced the shop girl to bundle the gloves in a paper parcel and bind it all with the ribbon. The blue looked fine against the crisp brown paper. He hoped she could use the ribbon in her hair or on her hat.)

"Might I ask a similar favor? And I am happy to pay you for your time. You see, I am afraid Annie will not accept this. It is a small token of my … my fondness and appreciation; a pair of gloves. I've noticed she doesn't have any. Would you perhaps convince her to take them?"

He held the small parcel out to the dark haired woman. Miss Minnie had shockingly pale blue eyes, made all the more pale by her dark lashes, but she regarded him warmly, searching his face for something before nodding to herself, seemingly satisfied with what she found there. She took the wrapped gloves and chuckled. "You may not have known her long, Mr. Bates, but you know Annie well, indeed. I will tell her that the only way you would accept the salve was if I made sure she accepted the gloves. Does that sound agreeable to you?"

He smiled broadly. "Yes. Perfectly agreeable. Thank you. What can I pay you for doing so?"

"I'll tell you what: I'm at my property all day Mondays and Wednesdays and mornings all week. You give me your word that you'll come by and let me look at your leg and we will call it even."

He furrowed his brow. "How is that payment?"

She grinned, showing off surprisingly straight, white teeth. "I didn't say I wouldn't charge you for the examination and services rendered. Besides, it will make Annie happy knowing that your limp is being looked after. That'll help me convince her to take the gloves."

He didn't know what to think. Beyond the fact that he was growing fonder of Miss Minnie by the minute. He held his hand out and shook hers firmly. "You have yourself a deal, ma'am."

"Oh please, Minn or Minnie is just fine. Mrs. Ballard if you must be proper, but I am definitly no ma'am."

He chuckled, and nodded. "Well, regardless, I give you my thanks, Mrs. Ballard."

His body fairly hummed with hope as he rode Pharaoh on to the Central Hotel.

* * *

><p>Annie Lark lived on egg shells, was accustomed to watching her words, her expressions, and the stories that the set and stance of her body told. She rarely let anything rattle her; was able to maintain her focus and the care with which she placed her feet, literally and figuratively. Not so since their train ride together. Memories of the brutality visited so senselessly on poor Eunice didn't help. She was clumsy and startling easier than usual. The only time she seemed to settle into herself were when she was immersed in her garden, working the floor, or reading. When Vi questioned her about the books previous owner, she nipped back, "Do you want to hear it or not?"<p>

That settled the matter, because Vi enjoyed Annie's reading as much as any of her whores. Even the reading evoked strange feelings, though. The book, _The Prince and The Pauper, _was good but hit a bit too close to home. She wasn't sure which boy made her more uneasy, the prince trapped in the pauper's life or the pauper trapped in the prince's.

She felt decidedly guilty. For she had not agreed to ride down with him again this last Sunday. But she also had not said she wouldn't. She had watched him from the trees to the west of the depot, hoping he would realize she was not coming, and give up his wait. When the station master called them to board, he frowned and looked around once again. He shoulders slumped a bit when he finally relinquished his spot and walked unevenly to the nearest car. She hated herself for being cruel to him. She wanted nothing more than to clamber into the train car and join him. It would be so simple to rush in, and sit and chat and laugh with him. They got on so very well. She wanted to ask him about his life. To hear stories of his mother, of his youth. She wanted to know how he came to be employed by Lord Grantham. She wanted so very much. It wasn't right though, to allow him to hope, or worse yet, to give in and saddle him with the mistakes and missteps of her life. He was too good a man for that. She had walked away from the depot feeling defeated and selfish.

Stumbling through her week, she was so distracted she didn't even realize Thursday had rolled around. At least, not until Heinrich Kant, the elected fire marshal clomped through the doors of the Garden in his freshly shined boots. It was no challenge to slip into a shadowed corner and disappear. She settled into a chair near Salmon Joe, who opened his mouth with a sloppy, soused-looking smile. He snapped it audibly shut again at the pointed glare she shot at him. The other few patrons in the place were quiet and solitary. It was the unspoken rule.

Thursdays at 4:00pm you made scarce and pretended not to notice that Vi was wearing her best dress. You certainly pretended that her hair was no more full, gleaming, or freshly braided and pinned than usual. She wore rouge and eye black, but only the slightest amounts, enough to liven her face, but not anywhere near the garish amount the girls painted on for nights in the lamplight.

Heinrich went by Hank or Henry, but most of the more unmannered of the town and surrounding industry referred to him as Herr Cunt. The fullness of his walrus mustache and the way the center of his upper lip peeked out of it only encouraged the moniker. He wasn't an unkind man, he just took his job seriously. Which didn't make him many friends. And his wife, Verdeline Kant, was a piece of work the likes of which Annie had never encountered. She was much younger than he, which was to say her late thirties to his mid to late fifties. She was a very vocal member of the local temperance league, and a bit of a zealot besides. She was decidedly vocal in her opinion of the local prostitutes, saloons, and dance halls. This did not help to earn him supporters amongst the lower born in the camp. Not that it really mattered, he likely won the election based on the votes of her proper church going acquaintances alone. He was true to her though, despite his affection for Vi, which, based solely on his tone was considerable.

Annie was curious about the story of the Kants' union, for they always seemed ... not indifferent to one another exactly, but decidedly unaffectionate. She didn't know either of them, not really, but she was curious. The Heinrich Kant she saw walk stiffly arm in arm with his wife was very different from the Fire Marshall Kant she knew from his visits to the Garden.

He always walked up to the bar, took his hat off, ran his boney fingers through his hair and set his hat on the stool next to the one on which he sat. This Thursday was no different. He placed a coin on the gleaming wooden surface that separated them, as was part of the ritual.

When Vi spoke, it was in a register she reserved for him. She took out two shot glasses and filled first one, then the other.

"You know I don't want your money," she said with un-characteristic softness.

"Take it anyways," he rasped. Annie had always liked his voice. It was gravel-rough voice, though laced through with honey when he was in the Garden. "Business good?"

"Lifting spirits is always good business. Selling them doesn't hurt either."

"No trouble then?" he asked. His tone was warm. Like the tone Mr. Bates took when he spoke to her when the were alone.

Vi laughed, dark velvet and throaty. Annie smiled to herself. Vi's laughs were as varied as the woman herself and all of them memorable.

"None as I can't sweet talk or apply a well aimed knee towards convincing to settle the hell down." She clinked her glass against hers and tipped her head back.

He chuckled. Stretched his drink out into three small draughts. Looked around the room, to the cast iron stove that warmed a corner during the colder months, and the fireplace that adorned the wall opposite the entrance. It was the only time they spent together, this weekly inspection visit, and he never neglected his duties. He pushed away from the bar and walked round and checked the lamps. Then she and Séam led him around the upstairs, through the whores' rooms and her office which doubled as her bedroom.

She never took him on his rounds unaccompanied. Not once. Annie hadn't thought on it much, but she realized with a start, that it was Vi's way of protecting him. Annie supposed that she could have Kant and Séamus inspect the upstairs alone, but her boss didn't seem to be able to let the lanky official out of arms' reach while he was in her realm.

When they were out of sight Salmon Joe tried his luck again. Annie stood and eyed him. "Rosie and Myrtle are working right now, but they are occupied. You can wait until they are finished, until I start working the floor in a couple of hours, or I can go get Blossie or Daphne for you now. Either way you know the rule, you'll need to visit the bath house; I can smell you from here." He pulled a face but stood and ambled off; presumably towards the bath house. There were times when she stomped around not caring if she crushed a few eggshells.

Fern appeared from her hiding place in the kitchen, looked around, and sat behind the bar. She threw a questioning look in Annie's direction.

"You know the routine, they'll be back down in a few. I'm making myself scarce so I don't get an earful for not making myself scarce sooner. Going up to Miss Minnie's for a bit. Need anything from her?"

"No but Dawn was just bitching that she is low on garlic and that herbed salt rub."

Annie grinned. "Can't have Dawnie unhappy. Sounds like I have a shopping list then, because we need more tea fixings, we're out of chamomile and rose hips and that soothing balm. Myrt used the last of it. See you in a few hours, love."

* * *

><p>Minnerva Jane Ballard unhitched and wiped down the old nag inside the age silvered redwood barn. She had been young when her uncle and father had built it, still too small to help with much besides running about to find nails that had been dropped. That was long ago, before the War Between the States. Now her uncle was dead and her father was an old man, busy tending to other parts of the family in other parts of the country, leaving her to care for the property as she pleased, which suited her just fine. She swatted the horse hard when the sour sorrel mare nipped at her. "Quit it you; I know! You'll get your feed when you get it. Give me your other goddamned hoof and just stop." She squawked and elbowed the animal sharply when it found the fleshy part of her hip while she bent to clean it's frog. "I'm not like to improve your digestion, you ungrateful shit!"<p>

When the cantankerous old mare was muzzle deep in her feedbag, Minn scratched her neck under her pale mane, slapped her rump and closed up the barn. She hadn't seen an adult grizzly in years, but there was no need to temp fate.

She scrubbed the back of her hand across her forehead and sighed. She was having a hard time shaking the lingering feeling of melancholy that she had had since Eunice's brutal death. (It was still strange thinking of her as Eunice and not Petunia.) Really, she had been murdered. She was sick to begin with, but after the beating she took, Minnerva was surprised the woman had lingered as long as she had. Teeth had been knocked from her mouth, her belly was distended and black from internal bleeding. Her ribs were broken; she could barely breath. It had taken her far to long to die. Minnerva closed her eyes against images that came anyway.

She had lived in these mountains for years. She had been visiting with her father when he and her uncle built the main house and barn. She moved to the property when her uncle died. Her father bade her see to the it shortly after she left Boston and the medical hospital. Her thoughts lingered on another broken, battered body. It hadn't been long after she helped Iana that she had had to leave Boston. She missed the darker-skinned, freckled ex-slave. Missed her with an ache that never went away. It had been nearly twenty years, just after the end of the war. She could still see those strangely pale green-gold eyes when she closed her own. She prayed that the woman was still alive somewhere - strong and stubborn as she was, there was real possibility.

She was grateful that she didn't know who had done it to Petunia ... to Eunice, for she likely would have found him and done something terrible, and then where would she be? Not helping any more of the girls in the camps or the jacks either. And Lord knew the town doc was of no real use to them.

There were some jacks and coopers and lime-workers that she would be happy to never have to see or treat again, but she worried about her boys, the ones who came to her with injuries or illnesses and then kept returning for her cooking and company. The ones that came and did odd jobs in exchange for dinner or a new pair of socks. Some days she felt like she mothered the whole of the mountain. She heard the crunch of footfalls and looked up to see Annie striding up the road.

"Annie-belle!" she called, putting her hands on her hips, the paper wrapped gloves in her pocket painting a broad smile on her face. "Just the girl I was hoping to see. How are you, my sweetling?"

She opened her arms to the slight young woman when she was near enough, and pulled Annie into a fierce hug. Snugged the pale head under her chin and rubbed her narrow back with slightly arthritic knuckles. Annie held on to her tightly and for a long time.

"Why you here?" Minnerva smiled. "You piss off Vi?"

The pale haired girl laughed out loud. "You know me too well, Miss Minn." She smirked and rolled her eyes. "Probably. I didn't stay around to find out. I've been a bit distracted lately. Forgot it was Thursday."

Minnerva snorted. "Vi still getting visits from the fire marshal on a Thursday? Didn't realize she was still smitten with Herr Cunt."

"Miss Minnie! You shouldn't call him that! It's not his fault his last name is Kant."

"Well, when the shoe fits," Minnerva shrugged. "He makes it too easy what with that ridiculous soup strainer of his. And he is a pain in the ass, always nosing around. Last time he came up here I gave him hell; threatened to shoot him if he made himself a nuisance. He didn't appreciate that I wouldn't allow him to inspect my bedroom. Told him only man ever to be let in that room is my husband, which isn't likely, seeing as I ain't seen hide nor hair of him since I was seventeen."

"Henry Kant's not a bad man." Annie nudged Minnerva with her hip as they stood together. "He just takes his job seriously; he is looking out for all of us. And rightfully so. Remember how bad the fire was down at Early's Trading Post? Three buildings burnt to the ground. We're lucky it wasn't worse. Lucky it was the rainy season and everything was wet."

"Yeah, yeah. That's what he said. And you know I don't really mind him marshaling around. It's just that the way he goes about it rubs me wrong. Beside, anyone as gonna fall for that boss of your's ain't got all their gears aligned and oiled properly. Lord knows what Vi sees in him, boney as he is; beak nosed and mustachioed as all get out."

"No accounting for what a body wants, is there?" Annie smiled softly, her thoughts obviously not on Herr Cunt.

"Isn't that the damned truth?" Pale, gold-green eyes came to mind. She sighed. Felt older than the trees her jacks were felling. Those were eyes that she would likely never see again. "Come on - I need some coffee and food. There are leftover fried potatoes and onions from breakfast. You want some?"

"Wouldn't say no," Annie answered with a grin. Minnerva looped her arm in the younger woman's and walked with her towards the main house. It was silvered redwood like the barn, and unremarkable save for the massive old-growth stump that rose into the air behind it. The house was built around the stump, butted up against it for protection from the wind. Or at least that's what she told people. No one ever seemed to notice that the wind blew towards the front of the house not the rear.

She left Annie to build up the fire and warm the food while she disappeared into her bedroom and to wash and change. The dark blue calico with pink roses and green leaves scattered over it was her going to town dress: pretty, but a bit too fitted to be able to accomplish much while wearing it. The green calico, the one printed with little brown birds was stained and worn, but soft and loose enough to be comfortable mucking about the property. Annie's gift weighted the apron, and make a crinkling sound when she tied it back on. The food was plated and the coffee was just boiling in the pot when she emerged, feeling decidedly refreshed. Annie was more than accustomed to making herself both useful and at home on her visits, and Minn liked that about her.

"Now, my sweetling," Minnerva piped up when she and Annie had eaten their fill. "What can I get for you today?"

"Not much. Just some of that herbed salt rub that Dawn likes and some tea fixings, and garlic." Annie's eyes went distant as she mentally checked off her list. "Oh, and your soothing balm and a little bottle of that sweet almond oil. The one Vi likes for her hair."

"An easy enough request to fill. You want me to put it on Vi's tab?"

"Yeah, well, everything but the almond oil."

"You want me to take the cash out of your tin or you want to trade?" As if she would take any money out of that girl's savings. She had yet to ever "take money out of the tin," though from time to time Annie requested it. As it was, she had been sneaking cash into the tin whenever she could. Minnerva thought herself a sorry person to be the only one in Annie's life she felt she could trust. She had been saving for as long as she had been with Vi; as much as she could when she could. Minn had been the holder of her savings for nearly as long.

"Wait, why are you buying Vi's hair oil for her?"

"I'm not. It's for me. My hair's been so dry lately." Annie looked sheepish. "I'll take trade if you don't mind."

It sounded like half an answer to Minnerva, who suspected it had more than a little to do with a certain tall englishman.

"You know I don't mind, sweetling. I'd enjoy some company whilst I take down and fold the morning wash. Then we'll get you fixed up with supplies and have you back to the Garden in time to keep Vi from bursting a blood vessel."

She had a sweet giggle, her Annie-belle, especially when it was genuine.

"You are just as bad as she is," the younger woman chirped, smiling. "Only in different ways, you know."

"Yeah, I know." Minnerva winked at her and grinned broadly. "But when you get to be of an age you stop giving a shit. At least if you are me or Vi."

The laundry line was strung between a fence post and the massive twenty foot tall redwood stump against which the main house was built. Annie set to work immediately, folding the half a hundred rags that Minn went through on any given day. Together they worked their way down the clothesline, folding sheets in unspoken unison.

"How you been, my Annie-belle? You ain't seemed right since our poor little Petunia got taken." Calling the girl by her given name proved troublesome as Minnerva had only ever known her by her Garden name. (The girl had told them on her deathbed, not wanting it to be forgotten. Eunice Clara Brewer. The child of Elias and Clara Brewer, parents who died of influenza and were in an unmarked grave somewhere in Kansas had wanted her name, their name to be remembered. Annie had asked Minnerva for money from her savings to buy the girl a headstone, but Minn wouldn't hear of it. Besides, the stonemason, Timothy Robertson, owed her a favor. He was agreeable enough to ensure that Eunice's grave was not unmarked. Minnerva had bade him carve the poor girl's parents' names on it too.)

A heavy sigh answered. "How am I supposed to be right after that? I hate knowing that whoever beat her is roaming the valley, free to do it to another of us whenever he wants. And Lit wasn't at the wharf Sunday before last when I went down; you know how I fret when I don't see him."

Minnerva smiled fondly. "Go down this Sunday. He will probably be back with a glorious story to tell you."

"I know, but it bothers me that his family is so far away. I mean I know Monterey isn't that far, but still. He has no one looking after him. I wonder if I shouldn't have gone to his rooming house to check on him."

"Sweetling, if you have thought about it in such detail it is obviously concerning you. Why don't you go pay him call? Take the early train down tomorrow; Petunia's ... Eunice's death is weight enough to be carrying with you."

"How are you faring?" Annie asked the question so gently, Minn could not mistake her meaning.

"If you tell anyone I said so, I'll profess you a liar, but I am poorly indeed. I've been patching up and tending folks for too long. Seen the cogs of this valley grind up so many girls and spit them out in so much pulpy mess. Shit, it grinds up the jacks and spits them out too. And then I'm left to stitch together the bloody pieces." She inhaled deeply, and sighed, opening her eyes, to find herself fixed in Annie's empathetic gaze. And then she was reminded of the contents of her apron pocket and a sly smile slipped over her face. "I passed the arnica off to your Mr. Bates."

"He's not my Mr. Bates." Annie rolled her eyes. Minnerva could see the way she turned a rosy shade of pink. "Thank you for your help, though."

Minn snorted and raised an eyebrow at the younger woman. "He's your Mr. Bates," she stated in a tone that brooked no argument. She looked the girl in the eye and with a smirk continued. "And don't thank me yet. He had a condition upon accepting it; that I would ensure that you accepted this." She pulled the sweetly wrapped package from her apron pocket.

Annie's face fell so quickly it made Minn want to weep. The girl held her hands away from the beribboned parcel as though it would burn her. "I can't. Whatever it is, I can't. He's done too much for me already."

"And why is that such a terrible thing, my sweetling?"

Annie's brow furrowed. "There isn't any way for me to repay him in kind. The only way I do have he has made clear he doesn't want."

Minn smiled gently. "I doubt very much that he doesn't want it, honey-girl, just that he doesn't want it to be payment." She thrust the small package forward. "Here. Open it. See what it is. You know I'm not letting up on you until you do."

Annie scowled, but took the package from Minn's hands. She fingered the ribbon gently, her expression growing wistful. "I don't know why he has to insist on doing things like this."

Minnerva snorted at her but held her tongue, enjoying watching the fair haired woman slowly and gently pulling open the bow and unfolding the paper. Her brow creased as she uncovered a layer of pale blue tissue paper. The crease deepened when she found the gloves themselves. Her chin trembled and she blinked rapidly, pressing her lips into a thin line. She brushed a single fingertip over the pretty leather and shook her head.

Minnerva couldn't keep the maternal smile from her face. "You're keeping those, Annie Lark," she snapped. "And you're wearing them. Don't you look at me like that. You need gloves and you won't buy them for yourself. Sweetling, it is alright to accept kindness from people. Not everyone expects something in return. Not everyone is kind because they want something."

"But he does, and what he wants, I have no business giving him."

"That so? And what is that?"

Annie looked away.

"No, you tell me. What is it? What is it that he wants?" She smiled, knowing the answer full well, and let her voice turn gentle. "He's sweet on you, honey-girl. I've known you for a long time and you are definitly sweet on him. More than sweet on him, I'd wager. I've never seen you act this way around any man. Or any woman, for that matter. And you know what? Sometimes the only repayment people need is for you to accept their damn kindnesses."

Annie opened her mouth to argue. Minnerva interrupted her. "No. You hush up, honey-girl. There's nothing wrong in the world with two people loving each other. Life's too short to fight with it, no matter what the rest of the world says. Take a lesson from an old woman; when you find someone you feel this strongly for and they feel the same, you sure as shit hold the hell onto that."

Annie sighed, but she carefully folded the tissue and wrapping paper and slipped them into the waist of her skirt. One by one she pulled on the gloves.

"He has a good eye, your Mr. Bates." Minnerva watched Annie open and close her gloved hands. "They look like they fit near perfect."

A slight smile tugged at Annie's lips. "They do."

**Thanks for reading. Reviews are my bread and butter. **


	5. Crayfish

**A/n: ****Extra love to Downtonluvr for keeping me fixed and satiated with DA.**

The blood pounded through Vi's head with painful familiarity. Every heartbeat made her feel squeezed in a pulsing vice. Her mouth was dry and Annie was curled around her; body like a stove, hands and feet like ice. The girl always tucked herself into the cracks and crevices of Vi's ample body, stealing warmth. If Annie was dozing when it was this late it was because she had gone out at dawn.

"Water," Vi coughed and swatted at her, clumsy-like.

Annie mumbled something sleepily and shoved her back. Vi pulled herself up and grabbed at the glass that the girl always poured for her after she passed out. Annie yelped when water sloshed on her and squirmed out from under Vi's elbow. "Christ, Vi!"

"Shut your fucking mouth," Vi croaked. She swallowed a groan, drained the glass and held on to the edge of the mattress. "You do more than whisper, I'll slit your throat."

Annie snorted, doing nothing to regulate her volume. "I'd like to see you catch me, sorry state you're in. You gotta slow down Vi, we had to lock you in near every night this week."

She coughed and cleared her throat and focused her attention on Annie. Casting about for distraction, she turned to question the girl. "Where you been anyway? You ain't abed this time of day unless you been out testing your tether early. You go up to that old bat's place or down to Santa Cruz?"

"None of your goddamn business. I was off the bleeding clock."

The pain in her head was not lessening. She hated Friday mornings almost as much as she hated Sunday mornings, sometimes more. Little cunt had gotten far too big for her britches. Nothing would be happening about it now; she was far too muddled, still reeling a bit from the booze. No matter, she could bide her time and properly remind Annie of her place when she was more able. Her response to the current impertinence, when finally uttered, was laced with a bitterness that surprised even her.

"I own you," she hissed. "You ain't never off my clock till you buy yourself back from me, you uppity little bitch. And I ain't seen nothing from you but what I hold back for your monthly expenses. I'll say it again. Where you been?"

Annie glared at her defiantly, silently taking the words like a slap. She pushed off of the bed and slammed the door behind her so hard the wall shook.

Vi collapsed on the bed, cursing the intensity of her hangover. She thought to when she was Annie's age. She had been like ripe fruit; bright, lush, and bursting. Always a coy half-smile. Always a scintillating word. Men flocked to her. Women hated her. Still did. Or so she told herself, though more and more her girls looked at her with less caution and respect and more with something that was beginning to resemble pity. Vi used to think herself resolutely fierce and calculating and valued those characteristics; she was not to be trusted and she in a way prided herself on it. She had always held her interests and the best interests of the Garden over all inside. When had she gone soft and fat and sentimental? When had fierceness turned to sloppiness and rage? All the whiskey in the world couldn't hide the contempt on that girl's face lately.

The noonday light was enough to keep her squinting. Her head felt like it had been stomped on. It hadn't always been like this. She used to looked at people out of the slitted corners of her eyes, find out the truth of them and move in for the kill. She could read a room like a book and play a person's body like an instrument. She could steer a crowd away from the tipping point, and awaken sensations in a person that they themselves didn't know they could feel. She used to be so good at effortlessly sliding in and out of roles. She liked the power it gave her. She particularly relished the ability to drive a man mad with desire. Few things pleased her more than the utter, infantile, pulsing helplessness of a man just about to climax. Before and after that moment they were too brutish, too sentimental, too foolish, too rough, too weak, but for that moment, they were raw, animalistic and held in her thrall and could be made to do or agree to almost anything. They were wholly and completely hers then. That was _her_ moment.

The thing was, the one she wanted to be hers never would be. The thought sent her hand into the rumpled sheets and blankets of the bed, groping until about until she touched the dented metal of her flask. She shook it and was pleased with the weight and sloshing sensation that followed. Not much, a few swigs, but enough to get her upright and begin to ease the throbbing in her head. She groaned and stretched and eventually stood. She emptied her bladder into the chamber pot and pulled her corset closed, hooking the busk bit by bit. She shrugged into on a stained satin dressing gown. Deemed herself presentable enough for breakfast.

It had been her wits, her attention to detail, and the vastness of her memory that propelled her to the top of her trade. She had had an uncanny ability to sense what each man needed. To be pampered or slapped, revered or degraded, she could tease it out of them in minutes, give exactly what they didn't know they wanted. In her time with them, she was able to make each one feel like the center and sole focus of her attention, for at that moment, they were. Her memory had served her well over the years. Secrets don't like to be shared and many a man will pay prettily to keep his unknown.

She enjoyed it, parts of it, anyway. Playing the game. Pulling strings. Fucking both powerful and not-so-powerful men. Planning out her moves across the board in conjunction with how others moved around her. She could never have gotten as far as she did if she didn't enjoy certain flavors of it.

In Annie she saw her younger self. Or a softer version of her younger self, anyway. She was reminded of how she used to be able to sniff out a man's difficulties and over the course of their hour together, settle the pieces of himself more firmly together; resolute in the direction he needed to go. It was a rare gift to be as finely tuned as all that. Annie had it too. Vi used to be a force to be reckoned with, back when she still gave a shit. Back when she wasn't trying to forget all that she remembered.

She stopped giving a shit years ago.

Vi knew she was a woman who garnered strong reactions, for better or worse. It threw her a little when she didn't get a strong reaction. She had seen within a minute of meeting Heinrich Kant that he was not one for her usual line of horse-shit flattery. So she poured him a whiskey on the house and answered his questions about the number of rooms in the building and watched him poke around the main barroom. That first inspection, she had taken him around herself, gauging his mettle and reading his tells. She hid nothing, apologized for nothing, told him honestly what he wanted to know. Flirted shamelessly. He had paid no mind to the flirting and paid instead for the drink. No bribing or buying that man, not with money or temptations of the flesh.

It was a bit later when he came to her under his additional mantle of Sheriff's Deputy, back when he used to be the deputy too, all those years ago. That was when she supposed she had made an impression. She had stood her ground like a man would when his questioning became leading.

"You can't make me create something as didn't happen," she had barked at him. Stared him down, eye to eye, chin thrust defiantly forward, drawn up to her full height, which was only an inch or two shy of him. "He was new to town, as far as I know. I sold him more than his share of whiskey and only one token for pussy. If it was still on his person when you found the body, well, then, he must not have used it. That doesn't link his death to us, just his desire to get fucked. It wasn't one of my girls. Anyone come across a body could have taken what money he had. My girls are well set up. They don't need to turn to murder to line their pockets. They have snatch enough to take care of that."

She had watched for a reaction to her florid language. His eyes widened, nearly imperceptibly, his cheeks colored slightly and he held her gaze; he had her number as much as she had his and was controlling himself accordingly. She'd known then that he would be a challenge. He tipped his hat to her and paid her for his whiskey. He returned the following week for another. And that was how Thursdays became Thursdays.

Every now and then when he was still deputy, she had sent the girls to stand outside with their tits out, so that he might come in and tell her to stop. He never insinuated anything else, never spoke rudely to her, barely spoke to her at all. He hadn't been deputy for years. Not since he was shot. He survived. It had scared the shit out of her. Probably his cunt wife too. She was pretty sure Verdeline Kant had made him step down. She never asked him and he never said.

She drained the last drops from her flask.

The mind leapt to dark thoughts if one let it linger too long on the past. Murky depths best left unplumbed. Eight ghost-pale part-formed babes lurked there. And one that lived that was never really hers to begin with. She was grateful that there was no one left alive who knew. It was unfair enough to bring him into the world. It was better he think his mother loved him and died, than know the truth that his mother didn't want him to begin with and didn't know what to do with him when he came into the world. Raised by whores was no way to become a man, but fortunately the ones as took him to their tit and under their wing were far better mothers than she ever was.

She was no mother. She was a business woman. So why were they always present, always turning to her with hungry mouths and vacant, mournful eyes? It was bad enough she had to contend with all the whores doing just that. But what could she do? They were better off dead than in this ferment of foul humanity. She kept moving, kept working, or at least kept talking and flirting and drinking. Now that Miss Minnie tended her and the girls, that number wouldn't grow. A little brew of foul tasting tea in the morning and she needn't worry about bringing another forsaken wretch into the miasma in which she existed, bejeweled with cut glass and velveteen though it was. This life of hers bore no place in it for a child – though God knew how many haunted it.

Dawn had been cooking. She could smell that much from her room. When she descended the stairs it was to head to the bar, refill the flask and slip it into the side of her corset. She poured herself a separate shot and downed it. Her head was slowly righting itself. Coffee. With sugar, milk if they had it. More water. And breakfast, in no particular order. She stumbled to the kitchen. Dawn glared at her and handed her a plate. The toast was cold and the eggs oily, but she ate anyway.

"Don't fucking start with me, Dawn," she stated in between bites. "Staring at me like I shit in the soup. Fuck off. I know you cook better'n this slop."

"So fucking come downstairs when I cook it, and not four hours later." Dawn banged a pot down loudly and Vi cringed. "And what the hell'd you say to Annie? She ran out of here like the place was on fire."

* * *

><p>Annie had pounded down the stairs and out into the garden. There she turned a circle and didn't know what to do. She knew what she <em>wanted<em> to do; she wanted to scream and just keep on walking until the earth or sea swallowed her. But nothing good would come from that. Even if she had somewhere to go or some other way to support herself; it didn't matter what she wanted. It hadn't mattered for well past a dog's age. Besides it wasn't solely about her. She had work. A full day of managing the girls, of getting ready for Friday night and the egos that would need to be soothed. She had songs she needed to sing and tricks she needed to turn. She also needed to keep an eye on Rosie. Since the new girl, Jessamine, had come on, Rosie had been giving Fern hell and needed to be taken down a peg. Annie wasn't sure what the connection was between the two, nor did she particularly care. She usually just gave the girl a wide berth, but she wouldn't have Rosie set a bad example. Fern may be cold sometimes and hard, but she was not deserving of the rasher of grief being served to her. Rosie had gotten under Annie's skin from the start, she suspected that was part of Vi's reasoning behind taking her on. It was just another thing to worry about. Because everything else wasn't enough.

She sighed. If she didn't have what all she needed ingredient-wise, Dawn made everyone miserable on Fridays, and they were still waiting on some promised meat. A patron had offered up deer meat in trade. He had yet to deliver and Dawn was ready to skewer the nearest person who looked at her cross-eyed. Daphne was a mess; jumpy and awkward and needing more than a little mentoring on the arts of relaxing into the necessities of her life. She was thinking of pulling the girl in with her and one of her regulars to watch and learn from what Annie did. Annie wanted a better idea of where Daph was getting it wrong. The list of things she needed to tend to were endless. And Vi was right. That was the worst part. Vi owned her until she bought herself back. And then what? How would she ever get the woman to let her go? She wanted to scream.

She took a few deep breaths and walked past the edge of her garden and down to the bend of the San Lorenzo that cut the back of the property. The water line was higher than usual from the winter and spring rains. Up here, even swollen, it was more a glorified creek. Down nearer Santa Cruz it came close to being a respectable river in both width and depth. She knelt on a boulder. Dipped her fingers into the slower moving edge-water. She sighed again. It never did any good to scream. Or cry. Or complain. The only thing for it was to work until you couldn't stand, and then sleep a bit, then get up and work again. She watched a crayfish crawl about beneath the water. It hid beneath the boulder she perched upon. She let her eyes relax as she scanned the shallow area around her and caught the movement of several others. Lit said that lobsters were the same, only bigger and lived in the ocean. She watched two encounter each other to the left of her spot; the smaller backed away quickly. The larger chased the first one Annie had noticed from beneath her boulder. It brandished its larger claws at the ousted crayfish. But she leaned too close watching. Her shadow fell on them and and both darted in different directions in clouds of silt. Their struggle for naught; the shelter of the boulder forgotten.

The sun was warm on her shoulders through the short over-hanging trees; bay laurel and tan oak saplings and large rhododendron bushes in the deeper shade. The boulder lay satisfyingly immovable beneath her. Lit was fine. The relief that that knowledge brought helped to soften the knot Vi tightened with her words. Well, he was in mourning, but otherwise fine. He had been in Monterey, with his family. With his mother and sister. They lost his mother's youngest brother, his uncle, a man who was more a brother to him in age. He had died in his sleep at fifty-two and Lit had taken his little Chinese boat out on the water, caught the wind and sailed across the deep, round bay to help with funeral arrangements. A sampan, his boat was called; bought off of a chinaman. Light and small enough to row, and but equipped with a mast that could be raised to lift a small sail. It was an ideal fishing boat for Monterey Bay.

Lit had exclaimed in Spanish when he opened the door to Annie's knock.

"I went to the wharves," she said in explanation. "I'm sorry to bother you at home. Only, I was worried."

He had smiled broadly and pulled her into his space, giving her a paternal hug and kisses on her cheeks besides. A cook-fire warmed the corner of the room. He sat her down at his small table and ignoring her protests, heaped fresh, hot, pan-fried fish, steaming rice, cold pinto beans and tortillas in front of her. He used his thumbnail to open a fresh apricot and pulled out the pit; gave her half.

The fisherman who sold next to him was supposed to have told her. Lit had let loose a short burst of Spanish — expletives from the sound of it — when he learned that his wharf-mates' wife had not relayed the information. "I didn't want to worry you," he said.

Annie only smiled. It was no wonder the message hadn't been delivered. That woman certainly seemed to despise her. "You are safe and sound; that is all I care about."

He told her of his journey while they ate, of burying his uncle and his family's grief. There were long passages in the story devoted to tables of food, made and given by friends, relatives, neighbors. People flowed in and out of his uncle's house like the tide, paying their respects.

He was saddened by the loss, yes, but said he was happy to have had time with his family. And now he was glad to be getting back to his nets and fishing lines. Even though they were close in age, he and his uncle had not been overly fond of each other. They had fought constantly growing up and their disagreements persisted into adulthood. Lit was not glad for his death, but hoped that with him gone there would be less conflict within the family. She listened to him talk the entire time she ate. He spoke around and through mouthfuls, keeping up with her, bite for bite. She smiled at the thought of him; knowing he was well made her feel lighter.

Lit's lunch had been her breakfast and it still filled her belly. It had made her pleasantly sleepy on the train ride back up to Felton. In her pocket was a blush-colored apricot, ripe enough to have a bit of give, but not overly soft.

"Eat it later, mija," he told her when she had protested, citing her full belly. He had smiled broadly when she finally accepted the small stone-fruit.

She had worn the gloves. The were delightfully warm. It had surprised her what a difference it made to her entire body to keep her hands warm. The mountain air tended to be overly moist and cold most mornings. Days could be hot and dry enough to give you a headache, but mornings and evenings were always cool and often met with clouds of fog. She would buy a piece of crisp notepaper and write a note to thank Mr. Bates. She'd need to practice beforehand to find the right words and ensure their proper spelling. She would thank him personally, too, but she felt it acutely that spoken words weren't nearly enough. Lit had noticed the gloves straightaway. He commented on them; recognized the leather and delicate stitching. It was a small town, as busy and bustling as it was, and he knew the woman who had made them. "She's good, that one. Esperanza ... I can't remember her real last name, we always called her Esperanza el Anciano, the Elder. She has the touch. She knows how to pick the best leather pieces and whispers to them and casts her little spells with hammers, awls and catgut. She used to chew it soft herself back when she was young, when she still had all her teeth. Those gloves will last you. A long time."

They were such fine gloves. They were the finest things in her possession. Excepting his book. But that was neither here not there. Miss Minnie had been right. Annie felt much better knowing Lit was safe. She had enough else to fret over, with Eunice's death, and Vi, and well, everything. She stood, arched her back, smirked at how the motion made several crayfish scuttle away and clambered up the short slope to her garden. The fence around her largest garden bed was nearly finished. She was pleased with it.

She had the gloves hidden away on top of the wardrobe, wrapped in the tissue. Not that any of the girls were prone to taking things, well some were, but none had pinched anything lately. Really, she wanted to keep them and the story of how she came to own them private. It was bad enough to have him perpetually on her mind without having to answer questions about his attentions.

Inside the Garden, she passed by the kitchen, ignoring Vi, who was yelling at Dawn. Dawn was her own sort of elemental force, and could handle Vi at the aging madam's worst. Annie sent Fern for a piss and started checking the bar to make sure they were stocked. She was bone tired of her current state; keyed up, agitated, and humming with extra energy and hope. She wanted to see him. She found herself watching for him over the next few hours. Whenever she had a chance to glance out the window or walk the porch she took it. She wasn't sure why she needed to see him today. She told herself it was to be sure that he knew that she had gotten the gloves and how warm they kept her. Only that wasn't a real reason. One of the real reasons made her nervous. It was the same reason she had stopped fighting the opium the men had forced on her back at the _other_ place. He made her feel good. He made her feel better than almost anything.

Thankfully she wasn't like to go through the tremors and sweats and sickness if she didn't see him. It still bothered her how quickly a body could grow used to a thing. Her time with Miss Minnie left her off-kilter, too. She kept thinking on Eunice. How she and Eunice were the same. How she didn't want to die and have no one in the world to mark her passing, not beyond the other whores. No one who knew her mother and father. No one who remembered her Alice.

Thinking of Alice broke her. It usually did. She needed to talk to him. She needed for Mr. Bates to know not just Alice's name, but what a sweet spirit she had been. And if she was selfish, which she was, she wanted someone to know _her_, to mark _her own _passing, whenever that should come, as more than just a whore. She wasn't stupid, death was a harsh and fast approaching inevitability in her world. For a working prostitute she was an old woman and had been for a few years now. She understood that women only got to be Vi's age doing this if they owned the brothel. And she hadn't the stomach for all that that entailed. Certain things necessary to prosper off of the vitality and youth of little girls and young women were simply not palatable to her. She knew her time was borrowed.

The spittoons hadn't been emptied yesterday. She slouched in displeasure at the prospect. When Fern returned, she gathered up two of the four. It was one of the only jobs she truly hated. She was always afraid of tripping and spilling the foul swamp of chew and saliva on herself and the floor. It had never happened to her but she dreaded the possibility. The wood floors were hard to clean. And the thought of it was enough to make her retch. She walked along, made both trips out to the latrine to empty them without event.

She had noticed Mr. Bates well before she spoke with him that first time. She watched him and the Earl ride around town when they first arrived, and she had been impressed at how impeccably dressed they had both been. The Earl exuded wealth; his manservant was dressed the part as well and cut the distinguished figure. She didn't suppose he was a kind man, the Earl, or his valet. She supposed they would both be relatively snobbish. She had learned slowly and quietly that while Mr. Bates was a servant and assistant to the Earl, he was not snobbish or unkind. He also seemed to have a deeper connection to the wealthy man. She could sense that they weren't friends exactly, but shared a sort of brotherhood. She wasn't surprised when she learned they had served together during the Ashanti Wars.

He was quiet, but the Earl was a talker when he had had a few drinks, and had been to the Garden on more than one occasion. He liked Delphinium, with her electric blue eyes and long legs and dark brown hair. She had given him a wide berth even before she knew Mr. Bates, only because she tended to mistrust the more moneyed of her patrons. At the other place, the one she didn't talk about, many of the men who came to take her looked well-to-do. When she had finally gotten away she recognized several as political figures in Santa Cruz. One had been the local sheriff. Those men had been particularly cruel and strange in their desires. But Delphi said that the Earl was sweet. He usually only ever wanted to talk or lay together.

"Sometimes he likes to touch me," she had said with a shrug when Annie had asked her if he was respectful. "Sometimes just look at me. Other times he wants me to touch him or even suck his cock, but he ain't never wanted to fuck. He's always gentle. Sort of wistful-like."

Annie had been pleased that Mr. Bates did not work for an unkind man. She had teased information subtly from some of the girls, from a few of the men who worked for the lime and timber works and the adjoining cooperage.

Early on, January maybe or February, she had learned from a cooper that there had been a marksmanship contest. They had held it for shits and giggles on a Sunday afternoon, he had said. And he told her how the Duke's dandy was a dead shot with a pistol and even deadlier with a rifle. He had beaten them all. The same cooper - she couldn't quite remember his name; Edmund or Edgar maybe - had also said that despite all of that, Mr. Bates didn't like to shoot. That he had to be convinced to join the contest.

It was Edwin, she remembered because there had been a girl around her age that lived near her aunt and uncle's farm whose name was named Edwina. Edwin had been a talker and had taken a liking to the tall Brit. He had told her over a cup of whiskey-laced tea that despite everyone's initial opinion, the Earl's companion was not a dandy; he was a hard worker, just, fair, and respected, though not always well-liked. Which told her that this purported sense of justice was true indeed. No one who bothers with being properly _just_ makes only friends.

She had liked the look of Mr. Bates from the start, had found herself hoping that he might come to the Garden sometime before she even knew his name. It became very clear to her very early on that he hid the extent of his drinking. She never saw him drunk, not properly. Her chosen profession made her an expert on detecting tells, seeing signs, sensing the shift of energy in a room almost before the energy shifted. She prided herself on her skills at reading people. They were a large part of the reason she was alive, and mostly whole. So she sensed the whiskey and that he drank a goodly amount, in the way he looked a bit too world weary for sobriety. She suspected he must do the bulk of his drinking up the mountainside. He used to go back up earlier and completely sober. More recently, she could smell whiskey on his person when they conversed during the day; not his breath necessarily, but on his person, as though he were sweating it out. It wasn't strong, not like the way Vi reeked of it. But it was there nonetheless. She noticed it around the time that his limp started to get worse.

He never seemed unhappy when they spoke. Homesick, perhaps, but not properly unhappy; not poorly. She could never tell if he had lost or won his card game. He always answered her the same when she asked on his luck at the poker table when he passed her at night. That is was fair to midlin.

At night, even after she began to notice his increase in drinking, he was never more than one or two shots deep. Just enough for his posture to loosen. Those were the times when his smile would part to show slightly crooked teeth, though only on occasion and for the briefest of moments before he closed his lips over his grin.

She caught sight of him late Friday. It must have been a long day for him as he was sagging a bit at the shoulders. She hadn't noticed the English Earl on the strip that evening, even with as much as she had kept an eye out for Mr. Bates. She thought sheepishly on how she was watching for him, of how she had watched for him from the start. As casually as she could she would situate herself if she was inside to discreetly see his comings and goings from the Central Hotel or the Queen of Hearts. He often took a table near the window there when he ate.

The saloons and dance halls were full, leaving the street relatively empty. She hung back, tucked against the building front. She was wearing her best dress. Well, her best whoring dress. The black one with pink ribbons. It cinched her waist fiercely and pressed the bottoms of her breasts nearly flat to her chest, so that she spilled out of the corset into her thin black chemise. She couldn't care less about the fullness of her bosom, but she made more money in tips on the nights she wore it. Just like she did when she wore her hair down. Though tonight she had tied it up loosely.

She pulled her shawl snug around her shoulders when she saw him. He was crooning quietly. It was a sweet song that sounded like one she should remember from her childhood. Nights like this one — when she was lucky enough to catch him singing — she hid in the shadows for as long as she dared, for as soon as he saw her he stopped and begged her pardon. This always made her want to weep, because sometimes it felt like he really meant it; that he really was begging her pardon, though she hadn't the faintest notion why. He, of all people, other than Lit, had no reason to apologize to her for anything. That night she was feeling bold. Perhaps it was because she was peckish; she hadn't eaten since breakfast, except to share the apricot with Daphne. Or maybe it was the wounds she was nursing from Vi's harsh reminder, or perhaps it was because she had been waiting so long to glimpse him that day.

"Don't stop on my account. I'm fond of hearing you sing your pretty Egyptian horse back up the mountain." She had tried to keep her voice even, to speak smoothly, but she heard sentimentality where she wanted free spiritedness.

He chuckled and stopped singing anyway. "No one wants to hear an old man sing, not when they can listen to a lark."

He winked at her then. She rolled her eyes. "Oh hush. You sing very well Mr. Bates. And you've a long way to go before you're an old man."

He chuckled. "Tell that to my body. It seems to be in deep disagreement with you and myself on this subject and insists on voicing it's rebellion at nearly every turn." He looked at her with undisguised affection. She pressed her lips into a thin line and tried to ignore the flutter in her stomach. He raised his eyebrows and continued, "A fact which has been very kindly remedied by a stubborn little bird I know."

Isis fought him for the bit, drawing his attention from Annie momentarily. Mr. Bates had called her a tricolor paint. She had white forelegs, and large rounded white patches at her shoulders and neck, over a richly mahogany colored coat. Her mane was lovely, with some white at the withers and black that rose from mid-mane to between her black ears. She was a near match to Pharaoh's cherry bay. The horse stepped sideways a touch and shook her head. He gave her some freedom and walked her round in a small circle, pulling her closer to the boardwalk and hitching post in front of the Garden. It tickled Annie that he was patient with the mare. She always felt it spoke deeply and directly about a person's character, the way they treated animals or children. Both of the Earl's horses were stunning. The cherry bay gelding was of spaniard stock and had beautiful lines and as a smooth a gait as she had ever seen on a horse. Isis, the paint mare, was not nearly as elegant in her lines. She was smaller, sturdier and stockier, but her coloring and patterns were striking. She looked positively small under Mr. Bates solid, tall frame. His feet hung low in the stirrups. The creamy white that painted her body made her shimmer eerily in the moonlight. Isis was beautiful, but seemed jumpy and energetic, perhaps somewhat untried. He patted her neck. "There you are, Stubborn," he spoke to the horse with kindness. "That's my girl, always needing to have her say."

"It may not look it now," he said when the horse settled. "But I used Mrs. Ballard's rub last night and this morning and it helped. More than I thought it would. Thank you."

Her grin was so broad that she feared her face might split. "Oh, good!" She clapped her hands together in delight. "I'm ever so glad!"

She looked down suddenly, a lump inexplicably gathering in her throat as she thought about the gloves. "That wasn't very gentlemanly, though, refusing the salve if I didn't take the gloves."

"Wasn't it?" he asked. She looked up at the playfulness of his words. His eyes shone mischievously in the shadows of his face. "Good thing I'm not a gentleman," he added impishly. But the tender way he continued left her heart feeling stripped bare. "You got them, then. Were they alright? I fretted a little over the fit."

She swallowed, took a breath and counted to three. It would not do to choke up on her words. "They're ever so lovely," she murmured. "And warm and soft. I wore them this morning. I ... I don't know how to thank you."

"You just did." His smile colored his words. She didn't need to look at him to see it, focused her attention on the horse's strong legs.

"Mr. Bates." She frowned and kept her gaze trained on Isis's front fetlock. The one nearest to her had a bit of mud speckled on it.

"I didn't give them to you so that you would thank me. Your hands were cold. They shan't be cold any more." The timbre of his voice changed then, went honeyed and private. "Knowing that ... it's the only thanks I need."

There was that feeling again, like the pop of a pane of glass beginning to fracture. She thought about what Miss Minnie had said to her. Everything she had said. She looked up at him, met his gaze. And felt him in the bowl of her hips like he was touching her intimately. She wanted to kiss him. She was grateful he was mounted, for it put him at a physical distance.

"They fit properly, then?" His words surprised her. Pulled her from her more base reactions. Gave her time to curb herself, to turn to humor instead.

"Like a glove." She smirked.

"Good." He was grinning widely now. Pleased with himself. "Good. Well then. I had better sing this girl up to her stall so I can get my sorry self to sleep."

He tipped his hat to her and clicked his tongue at his boss's horse.

"Mr. Bates?" Her voice halted the horse's progress, as he immediately turned Isis back around. "Might I ... Might I talk with you some time?"

"Of course. I'd like that."

"Good." She couldn't be sure in the flickering cast of the street lamps, but she thought she could see color rise to his cheeks. It made her smile to herself.

"Until next time, then," his grin was even wider, if it was possible.

She found that she couldn't stop herself from smiling back. "Until then. Good night, Mr. Bates."


	6. Interlude I

Sunday morning she woke up from a dream of rubbing her cheek against his, of dipping her tongue between his lips and kissing him. She shuddered at ghost sensations; it had been so real. She had felt him, had kissed him so thoroughly they were both left gasping and trembling. She could still feel him against her lips, his arms strong around her. In the dream they had both been fully clothed, but she sat astride him. She had reached her hand between them at one point, had felt him firm and swollen beneath his trousers, had tilted her own hips to press into him. He had been wearing his proper clothes, not the denim and flannel he wore while working up the mountainside. She lay in Dawn's bed. Her breath and blood were loud in her ears.

She looked about. Dawn was up and cooking. Fern was in Séamus's room. And Annie was wet. So much so, it shocked her a little when she slipped her fingers through the slit in her knickers. She closed her eyes and let the sensations drummed up by her dream simmer through her; imagined it was him touching her, him inside her. It didn't take long for her to climb to a shuddering peak. She clenched her teeth and held her breath; biting back any noise as her body rippled with pleasure. She lay panting and sated, for as long as she could justify. The memory of his touch faded with each passing moment. It was a false memory anyway. Eventually, she gave into the inevitability of her day and swung her feet off of Dawn's mattress. She didn't usually remember her dreams. She couldn't help but feel grateful to have remembered this one, even if the thought of it made her blush. Even if it left her a bit uneasy; like she was touching him — taking liberties — without his knowledge or permission.


	7. Burdens

_Sunday, 14 May 1882_

_I wrenched my knee on Friday. My ankle gave whilst I clambered over some debris, just after a tree fall. It didn't hurt much at first, not before yesterday morning. By then I was so overcome with barely restrained joy that I paid it little mind. My encounter with Miss Lark on Friday night left me elated and hopeful. She has accepted the gloves, and I am pleased knowing her hands will be warm and protected on her trips into town. Now if I might only convince her to lend me her dress to work upon at my leisure... One hurdle at a time, I suppose._

_I hear Pharaoh knocking his feed bucket against the wall. This is my sign to hurry my morning rituals and ablutions to tend his needs. Later, I plan on luring His Lordship up to the lime and timber works to fraternize with the workers a bit. He enjoys playing lord and leader. Especially to groups of unruly and overgrown boys, it would seem._

* * *

><p>John Bates put the pen down and thought on black feathers in Annie Lark's blond hair, the way she wrapped herself in her shawl, and how warmly she smiled at him and Isis. She always had an encouraging word for him. He was preoccupied with eyes the stormy blue of the ocean, darkened by lamplight.<p>

He rode Pharaoh down into Felton and persuaded the Earl to visit the kilns that afternoon. The man was growing more erratic and emotional as the days lengthened. Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham always had been a bit of an overgrown school-boy himself; spoilt with too much candy and toys, and not enough discipline. Lately his drinking and gambling where beginning to get out of hand. Bates had taken to shadowing him, hanging quietly back and then pulling the man away from his vices when he had stopped being able to make rational decisions. Or, better yet, keeping him in for the night when possible. It meant being goaded into having a shot or two, or a snifter of brandy, depending on His Lordship's disposition and what alcohol he happened to have lingering about the hotel room or card table.

The Earl tended towards sentimentalism and often wished to relive his so-called glory days during the Ashanti War. So, on nights when they stayed in and Bates was called upon to offer his company, they toasted fallen brothers and sang songs in their honor. Other evenings the peer went on at length about how wonderful the endlessness of the States were, how teeming with riches and resources, and beautiful women. Lately he sat in His Lordship's hotel room listening to the man go on about this family he had created and had spent nearly every day with, yet still barely knew. "There are times when I feel as though Cora is a stranger to me, completely. And I have never known what to do with myself around the girls. It's as though I've lived with another man's family since the war, Bates."

He had nodded sympathetically. He understood what it was like to come home from war and be unwelcome and painfully superfluous. He did what he could to look after the Earl without overstepping his bounds. He worked to keep him appropriately occupied, fed, somewhat sober, and safe from assault or theft. There was only so much one person could do when another was hell bent on slowly coming undone. He had first-hand experience with that as well. He did what he could and more, for he did feel a fondness for the man. Mr. Bates knew that the Earl of Grantham had good intentions. Even if sometimes he needed a bit of help to discover those good intentions. The visit to the kilns proved interesting. His Lordship thought of himself as a man's man and enjoyed the contests of skill and strength the workers played that Sunday. There was bouts of arm wrestling, a series of horse-shoe throwing matches, and a marksmanship contest. Bates was able to hang back and let the Earl play the role of patron come to see his workers, his investments. It was a part the wealthy man knew well and it gave him a sense of importance. His Lordship had ridden Pharaoh at Bates' behest, and rightfully so. Isis had proven the valet right, resisting guidance and being jumper than usual, even for her. The two men descended the mountainside near sundown at their leisure, enjoying the ferns and trees that overhung Fall Creek. John Bates was grateful for the moments of comfortably silent camaraderie.

His Lordship invited him to sup and spend the evening with him; bade him stay in and play cards. The valet was happy to comply. The season meant fresh greens and the hotel had managed to come by a crop of asparagus that was tender and fresh and tasted of springtime. Together, the two men ate nearly two whole chickens, and a large serving plate of roasted onions and potatoes. Coop's wife, Norah-Jane, was a better cook than the hotel employed, but it was still resoundingly good and filling, besides.

They got on well, the two of them, had from the time Mr. Bates had been assigned as his batman. He felt an affinity for the Earl, even now. Saw him for what he had grown into; an aging man not dissimilar from himself, past his prime, and like Bates, alone on this side of the world, in a sea of people. He seemed to be a bit more lonely and instrospective as of late. Though there were certainly still nights where he had to gather up and herd His Lordship back to the hotel from card houses and brothels alike. In a way he felt very deeply for the man. Lord _of_ the manor, but never really allowed to do anything _for_ the manor, father of daughters he didn't really know or understand, husband to a wife who blamed him for the death of their daughter. His Lordship's class and vast wealth created its own set of unique problems. As did the way his life dictated he move within it.

He left His Lordship a bit earlier than usual, though not unwell. Their evening together had been quiet and drew to a natural close just past nine. After the extremely hopeful way they had left things on Friday night, John had been a bit disappointed to miss Annie on Saturday. He was pleased to have a bit of extra time to himself this early in the evening.

It was a quiet night and while a few of the larger saloons were busy, most were fairly empty. Sundays tended to be calm in the San Lorenzo Valley. With its mills and lime works and logging camps it was not a day of rest exactly, but more restful than others. The late shift on the mountain had not quite begun. Isis seemed to have more pent up energy than Pharaoh, so he saddled her back up and rode towards the Garden. Perhaps if he didn't see Annie he would go into the Queen of Hearts and watch for her over a cup of tea. His knee and ankle were acting up enough that he had half a mind to stiffen the tea with some whiskey.

He smiled when he saw a white clad figure on the boardwalk in front of the Garden. She was talking quietly with a man. He pulled Isis slightly away to give Annie privacy. Or to keep himself for overhearing what he didn't need to overhear. But then Annie's voice went high pitched and pleading. He looked back and could see metal glinting in the jack's hand. Not a jack - a cooper - it was Jessup Bleidel, and he was waving a gun around and then pointing it at himself. And before Bates could think he was sliding off of Isis and sneaking up behind Bleidel. It did not take much effort to disarm the emotional cooper, who sobbed and fell to his knees when his gun was out of his grip. Once Bates had emptied it of bullets and pocketed the weapon he grabbed Bleidel by the scruff of the neck, pulling him into the street and steering him towards Bennett Street.

He was about to try to talk to the man; knew him well enough to know that he was full of shit. Bleidel moaned and wept his mistakes, threatened to end it all every other day and never followed through. Still he felt for the man, felt for all the men out here, lonely and away from everything they held dear. But Bleidel seemed to forget about trying to kill himself. Evidently he was gravely offended by the way Bates held him, and started up a whole new, decidedly inebriate line of squawking about slavery being the root of all evils. When Bates released his hold, the cooper stumbled and vomited the contents of his stomach into the middle of the road. Gut emptied, the man stood up and acting like nothing out of the ordinary had just happened, proceeded to walk roughly towards the road up the mountain. He stopped and patted himself down and then looked around. "Where's m'gun?"

The sudden swing from one thing to another struck John as odd, but people behaved strangely when they had had too much drink, and his tolerance for the man had hit its limit.

"Good lord man, go home and to sleep and I might give it back to you in the morning." Any sympathy he felt towards the man shattered with the memory of the quiet panic in Annie's voice. It was all the motivation he needed to apply his boot to Jessup Bleidel's ass. "Go!"

The drunken cooperage worker stumbled again and nearly fell in the muck, but through some miracle of arm wheeling and drunken physics he remained upright and began trundling his way up the road. In less than a moment he was singing something unrecognizable. When John was sure he was keeping to the path and headed towards the cooperage that produced barrel after empty barrel to be filled by the lime works, he turned his attention back to the front of the Garden.

Their scuffle had been a relatively quiet one. The inside of the Garden was full of the frenetic sound of the piano. He heard Vi's throaty voice take command of the crowd after the song ended. No one from inside seemed to have noticed. Annie stood alone and ashen. She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders and crossed her arms in front of herself, obviously shaken. Truth was, it had rattled him, made him realize how she was completely at the mercy of the men who bought her. She could hold her own and then some he was sure, but she was only five foot tall. And thin. While she wasn't frail by any means, she would still only be able to defend herself to a point. It was obvious Jessup didn't mean her harm, but she could have been hurt. It relieved him how easily he had been able to creep up behind the man and wrest the gun from Bleidel. He was suddenly grateful his employer had kept him for exactly the amount of time he had, going on about the challenges of being born into wealth and the state of his marriage.

"He's not a bad man, Jessup," John heard himself saying as he walked back towards her. "He just gets maudlin when he's had too much drink."

She scowled, spoke quietly, but in an octave above her usual tone. "It's not maudlin that troubles me," she said, hard-tongued and whisper-shrill. "It's threatening to blow his bloody brains all over the boardwalk I just swept, on account of cheating on his wife. Not over his wife cheating on him, mind, but his own meandering cockstand." She glared down the road after the cooper. "He can kill himself somewhere else over his shite decisions," she snipped slightly louder, over his shoulder at Jessup. "I've bugger-all else to do before I get 'round to scrubbing gore."

She flicked a glance over at him. He loved it when her Yorkshire lilt took on the more nasal twang of those around her who were American-born. He also loved it when she looked to see if she had offended him. He saw past the pointed sounds of her words to the way her brow furrowed, to how she kept glancing towards the corner and back to him. Her breath was unsteady. He reached a hand to her. A hand she immediately grasped tightly between her own. She looked at him; wide eyes brimming with concern.

"You're all right, then?" she whispered. "He could have shot you."

It struck him that she had been afraid for him. He'd offered his hand to reassure her, to gauge if she was well. Instead she was leaning towards him, physically pulling him down to her. Her eyes were so large. Her whisper did things to him. Things that left him ashamed. He averted his gaze, gave his head a curt nod and released her hands. She held onto him for a moment more, searching his face. He wanted ... things he had no business wanting, and he had already well enough scared her off in simply asking her to ride the train with him. Patting the confiscated gun in the front pocket of his frock coat, he tried his best to smile naturally, reassuringly. "He won't be getting it back anytime soon. I had best collect Isis." The painted horse had wandered down the road apiece, after he had dismounted. The white that traced up her foreleg and onto her throat looked pale in the light of the moon, vaguely resembled a ghostly woman reaching to the heavens. "She and I shall herd Jessup back up together."

Shivering against the cool night air now that the excitement was over she nodded.

"Tell him he's blackballed," she spat with finality as he walked away; her voice hard again, her eyes narrowing. She was fierce when she needed to be. But by the time he had caught and mounted Isis and turned her around, Annie's fire had died back down.

"Mr. Bates," she called softly when he rode past, Isis lifting him almost eye level with her on the porch. He reined the horse over to her. She reached out for his hand again, her bare fingers sliding over his gloved ones. She looked so very small; vulnerable.

"Do you need to go just now? I ... wonder if I might take up a bit of your time. I know it's late ... I don't want to be a bother, but..."

"Of course. You could never be any sort of bother."

She chuckled quietly; a dry sound. "That is decidedly untrue, but I appreciate the sentiment. Do you mind if I lead Isis out back?"

His heart seemed to both leap into his throat and drop into his stomach at the same time. She hurried on, "I mean nothing improper. Just so that we could have a private word. Closer to the river the water makes noise enough to drown out most other sounds." She cocked her head towards the upstairs in the direction from which loud knocking and grunting was emanating. "And Isis could have a nice drink."

John had no idea what she was really asking. It was all he could manage to do to nod and smile as calmly as his fool face would let him. He urged the horse into a walk round the edge of the porch. Annie followed them, seemed to barely touch the two steps down to the ground and took the stiff leather from his hands. He wasn't sure if he should be elated or fearful. She might be readying to lecture him about any number of bounds he had overstepped in buying her the gloves, but something happened when Annie stood with Isis. The tension in the horse's shoulders eased; he felt it. John watched, silent and pleased as Annie cooed at the mare. Annie sighed deeply and stroked the horse's neck; visibly relaxing herself and looking far less poorly than she had only moments before. Isis made herself content lipping at the woman's shoulder and jaw, blowing great puffs of stinking horse breath in her face. Annie only smiled, made a face, and held the horse's soft, black muzzle. She whispered secretively into the flaring round nostril closest to her. She giggled, then wiped her face and hands with a corner of her woven cotton shawl when the horse snorted. John shifted, about to pull his foot from the stirrup, but she noticed and stepped back to him stilling his movement with her hand, small and warm, on the meat of his thigh. He heard his breath catch, shocked himself with how loud it sounded, how base was his response to such a simple touch. He prayed that she hadn't heard him. When she immediately pulled her hand away, he knew she had.

"Stay there. Please. Let me lead her. We girls don't often have a moment to chat, do we?" She moved back to scratch the horse's wide cheek, smiled when he nodded his assent.

"You're good with her," he stated, mortified at his reaction to her touch and cringing at his lame attempt at continuing their conversation.

"We're birds of a feather, she and I. She's got quite the mind of her own now, hasn't she?" Annie smiled broadly, her teeth flashing white in the moonlight. "I can appreciate that. And we're both beasts of burden, aren't we love?" she asked Isis who snorted and made a whuffling sound in answer. "See? We have an understanding."

He wanted to respond, to repudiate her words, to tell her not to say such things of herself, but the resonating truth of it hit him so hard in the gut that he could think of nothing to say. Instead he watched, both delighted and dumbfounded, as she clicked her tongue and led Isis confidently into the darkness of the alleyway between buildings. He imagined she had grown up around horses, or at least around the family horse, to move with that kind of ease and command. Isis did not usually go into strange, shadowed places with such calm. His eyes adjusted soon enough; the moon was nearly full and quite bright. The narrow dimness of the alley opened up to bare, dark soil, leaves shining silver in the moonlight and the curling, twisting bones of driftwood she had spoken of down in Santa Cruz. The fence rose from the soil to curve around an elliptical bed. Annie walked them past it, chirping and whispering to Isis. The horse walked alongside her like a dutiful family dog, didn't even balk when the slight woman led them down a narrow trail along the bank of the river. John realized then that Annie had wanted more than to have a few moments' interaction with the horse. She was sparing him and his gammy ankle a rather complicated trail on uneven ground lit by only the moon. It was a considerate gesture, and one well framed to protect his pride. She was more than clever, this young woman who had taken his fancy.

Isis went slowly and stepped carefully over several large roots, and he held onto the saddle horn to keep his balance. (Lord Grantham had insisted that as they were out west they needed western style saddles, and for that, at this moment he was grateful.) The noises of the buildings grew distant as they neared the threading current. The wind picked up slightly; leaves rubbed together over the sound of the water. In the calm, the soughing breeze surrounded them. It smelled of wet earth and growing things.

"I woke up wanting to kiss you, Mr. Bates," she murmured to the night sky as she walked; to no one in particular though she addressed him. "And not because you give me things. Or out of a sense of obligation. Or because I'm grateful."

The ground leveled out to a pebbled beach along the edge of the river. She stopped walking. Looked out into the darkness. Isis' reins were still in her hands. He was terrified. Didn't know if he should breath or not.

"I don't know why I said that out loud; it's not at all why I brought you here."

"Why _did_ you bring me here?" he rasped, pleased he could convince his mouth to make speech sounds.

"I wanted to talk to you. Proper like - not three sentences spoken in between the comings and goings of tricks."

"And does that preclude your kissing me?" He was a bit amazed at his own cheek.

Her giggle came easily and genuinely. He let go of a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"I suppose not, but I don't mean to give you the wrong idea."

"So give me the right one." He wasn't sure quite who was speaking, because it couldn't be himself.

"Mr. Bates," she admonished with a lilt in her voice. He could hear the raised eyebrows, the smile when she said it, though she didn't turn to look at him right away.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" It was safe to dismount; he wasn't afraid of frightening her off. Not anymore. He tucked Jessup's emptied gun into one or Isis's saddle bags before he dismounted. Damn fool could have killed someone. He must have grunted or something when he landed, because she was frowning and looking at his leg.

"Is it you ankle?"

He sighed. "It's nothing, it's fine."

She knelt before him and then her hands were under his pant leg, prodding painfully-swollen flesh. "Mr. Bates! This is not nothing."

He bit the inside of his cheek at the sudden intimacy of her hands moving over his ankle and calf, willing other flesh not to swell.

"Come on." She stood and gave him her arm. "I know just the thing for it, if you'll allow me. Over here."

He followed her as obediently as Isis had. She helped him navigate along a few large round stones out to sit on a massive boulder that lay partially submerged in the river. It was well chosen; another boulder lay on top of one side of it and proved both a help in lowering himself to sit, and a suitable backrest. As though it was the most regular occurrence in the world, she loosened his laces and eased his boot and sock from his foot. He protested and she brushed his words away. He very much wanted to touch her hair; it was pulled from her face into a loose bun, with strands slipping out of place here and there.

"Mr. Bates, have you been to see Miss Minnie yet?" She seemed to take far too much time folding his pant leg up and unwrapping his ankle. Her hands were gentle, her touch light. He needed her to stop touching him. He needed to hold his breathing even and slow. "Your knee is swollen, too! I wish you'd let her take a look. You are wrapping your ankle far too tightly. Now, nothing in this river is big enough to take a proper chunk out of you, so go ahead; get yourself situated and put your foot right in."

He hissed when he lowered his foot into the cold water. It wasn't icy; no snow fell on these mountains to later melt away. Still, it was pleasantly cold on his foot. He hummed his relief. Merely having the wrap gone and taking his weight off of it was blissful.

"Let me go make sure your grand lady there doesn't wander too far astray." She flashed a grin and went to the horse; led her around a bit. He watched them. They seemed to conspire together; Isis ears turning and pricking up expressively as Annie spoke. When the two had mystically divined the appropriate spot Annie tethered her by pinching her lead in between two heavy rocks. He was smiling when she returned to him, the ache in his ankle and knee nearly forgotten.

"Better?" Annie knelt down and gently nudged his left side, he scooted a touch closer to the water, making room for her on the lee of the stone. "There's a bit of a puddle over here I'd rather not sit in," she said apologetically. She tucked her feet under herself, resting her weight on one hip. He was altogether aware of her; the nearness of her, the curves and lines of her body, angled and soft.

"Of course. And yes," he said and cringed again as his usual sparseness of speech and lack of conversational skills collided with how completely taken he was with this slip of a woman.

"I don't like the look of your knee either. That can't be pleasant," she said in a distant voice. She cocked her head and then smiled to herself. "I know," she murmured.

He watched her, again afraid to move or say anything. She stood back up, slid her shawl from her shoulders and touched it to the surface of the river before wringing it out and wrapping it loosely around the tight skin his knee. It was blessedly cooling on the inflamed joint.

"There, that should give you a touch of relief," she lilted, sounding pleased with her creativity.

"Annie, you'll catch a chill." He frowned.

"When we're done talking I'll go inside and stand by the stove and warm myself," she said brightly, in a burst of unarguable logic that reminded him of his mother. "Will you be applying cold compresses to your knee when you go back up?"

"No."

"Well, then. The shawl's already wet; so take advantage of it and hush."

There was such a selfless happiness in the way she smiled at him. He had to clear his throat, swallow the knot of tears that rose from his chest.

"Thank you." He did his best to restrain the emotion in his voice. But even he could hear the gravel edge of his feelings for her cutting through the night air.

"You never need thank me, Mr. Bates," she answered.

With the care of a cat she settled herself back down, close to him. Close enough to lean into him. She didn't, but he could feel the heat of her body mingle with his all the same. If he concentrated, he could keep his breathing even and calm.

"Let me anyway," he said, unable to pull his gaze from her.

She was silent to that. They were both silent for a time. Her gaze lifted to the heavens. He shrugged out of his frock coat and settled it over her shoulders. She looked at him then in surprise. "You don't need to..."

"Let me anyway," he repeated softly, interrupting her. He wanted to tuck her hair behind her ear so badly he could feel it in his chest and face like grief.

In answer, her hand found his, tentative and halting, and her chin trembled for a moment. The moon and stars shone brightly overhead; the night was clear. In the hush, the crickets and frogs took up their chorus. He thought about sliding an arm around her, tucking her gently to his side, her cheek on his chest, her head beneath his chin. But he dared not. This was a fragile truce they were sketching out. As fragile as spider silk.

"I want to tell you about my sister," she said quietly.

"Alice, was it? Who wasn't born yet when you and your father ate through the whole of Whitby?" He hoped she could hear his smile, that she would take courage from his presence to say what she needed to say. "What is she like?"

"Her name was Alice Joan."

He heard the 'was' and the meaning behind it and curled his fingers more completely around Annie's hand. She paused for a long time, but when she began to speak again, the words came tumbling out in a rush.

"She had golden-brown hair like Ma. And blue eyes like me and Da. She was so lovely. And curious and inquisitive. She was smart as a whip; ciphered figures better than I ever could at her age. She could keep the tempo of a song and harmonize with me almost before she could walk. She would be eighteen this fall. She was just shy of ten when she died. Diphtheria hit Santa Cruz hard. The camps up here too. Up until then I kept her safe. I did whatever I had to do to keep her healthy and as happy as possible. And I kept what I had to do to accomplish that a secret."

"Oh, Annie," he breathed, heart breaking for her already.

"It was ... unspeakable what my sister suffered. She was so brave. She hurt so terribly, but after a while... She ... Have you seen diphtheria Mr. Bates?

He shook his head. "No, I've weathered dysentery in the army, and influenza. But not diphtheria." He had heard though of children's throats swelling grotesquely, cutting off their airways. Of horrible necrotic sores, and whole families being depopulated of their children in just under two weeks. He couldn't comprehend what it must have been like for them, Annie or Alice. "I know about it, though. Did she suffocate?"

Annie nodded.

John felt as though he would be sick.

"I remember before she fell ill, being worried. The time was coming when she'd start to see things, and she was growing to an age where she would be noticed by the same sorts who were noticing me. I was terrified she would find out or worse yet, be lured into it all by one of the pimps. Girls disappear all the time. Never to be heard from again. In the end, it didn't matter. Nothing I did kept her safe when the sickness came. I stayed with her in the quarantine tent, nursed her until ... until she didn't need it anymore. I made sure she had a coffin. And a proper burial. I couldn't afford a headstone, not at first, but I made sure after I got away from the other place, after Vi saved me, that the second I had enough saved she had her marker. It's simple and small, but it's something."

He was quiet after she spoke. "Alice Joan?" he asked when their silence stretched too long.

"Alice Joan." She smiled looking into the darkness of the river.

"I'll remember." The enormity of what she was sharing with him tore at his heart.

"Good," Annie whispered, then nodded once. "She deserves to be remembered. She was so full of love. She didn't hold it against Ma, bringing us out here, away from our home. She was a little sneak, always pulling pranks on me, hiding my things, or putting frogs and newts in my nightstand drawer. Alice thought she was terribly clever. Half the time, I'd watched her catch the creature and could hear her giggling while she thought she was secreting it away into the house."

He chuckled softly; could picture a small girl who looked nearly like Annie, larking about, getting into trouble.

"She had her whole life ahead of her," she said roughly.

"So did you," he leaned into her a little. Just a touch. Felt her fingers move, her thumb brush over the back of his hand.

"No, I didn't." She frowned and sighed. "I had already forfeited everything to protect her. But I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

He blinked hard to hold back his tears. He had never been in awe of another human being. Not truly. Not like he was at that moment. Awe. For what she had endured (he was acutely aware of all she was omitting, all he had yet to learn; that which she hinted at or spoke around) and for the fierceness and care with which she protected her sister. After everything, she kept on, tenaciously holding to herself and what small joys she found around her. He could picture them, two little girls alone in the world, an ocean away from everything they'd known. He was in awe of her, because she would forfeit her very self again if she could do it to keep Alice safe. He could hear that she meant it; without hesitation and with everything she was.

"Will you take me with you sometime, when you go to visit her?" he asked.

She turned and looked at him, she seemed surprised at the request. "If you wish. I'd appreciate the company. She would have liked you very much - would have been glad for the respect you afford me, Mr. Bates."

"Annie Lark isn't your real name, is it?" he asked in a low voice, when he was able. He couldn't quite believe that he wasn't weeping openly.

"No one here knows my proper name." She frowned and looked at the night sky. "Not Vi, not even Miss Minnie. If I ... when I'm gone there will be no one left to... I mean, I'm healthy as an ox, but things happen to women of my sort. We... We don't tend towards long lives."

She pulled his hand onto her lap, held it there with both of hers, and couldn't seem to take her eyes away from it.

"Would you ... Would you remember us, Mr. Bates? Not just me, but my mother and father, and Alice?" Her voice was halting and small.

He was silent; didn't trust himself to speak, but nodded and held firmly to her hands. She continued, going sort of singsong as she recounted the story.

"They're gone too, you see. Da died four months before we came; his name was Daniel George. Ma, a few months after we arrived. She was Joanna, with the middle name of Rose. Please, you mustn't think ill of them. They were good people. They loved each other so much. They loved us too, Alice and me. It's just neither one was very good at planning for the worst. They both led with their hearts, not their heads. It was... It was a mistake to come. To follow her. It wasn't even Ma's idea, but there we were. After Da died, she went a little fibblety. Not mad, not really, but not all there either. It was Da's dream to come to America; he had this idea that he would sell goods to other immigrants. Grow wealthy off of the flow of people looking for a better life.

"He went out one night and didn't come back. Ma was three months pregnant. They found him later, he'd been thrown into the river and floated two towns downstream. Someone had beaten him and stolen his money. It was so strange. It wasn't like him to be anywhere but the local public house or home. But Ma would never discuss it with us. We moved back to my aunt and uncle's farm.

"The man she took up with was nice enough and on his way to America, to California, to strike it rich in the gold fields. It was awkward for her on the farm. That's what she said, anyway. It made her unhappy to see all of what they had in light of what we didn't. I never noticed that, though. They may have questioned her judgement but they treated us girls well; they never had any children, and loved us like their own. I was never exactly sure what the conflict between the three of them entailed. I only know she sold most of our possessions and booked passage for the three of us to join him. It all happened so very fast."

She spoke with no guile of the events. Recounted them almost as if it had all happened to someone else.

"Robert Samuel was his name. He'd been working an extra shift at the local dairy for his brother and got a little cut on his ankle shortly before we left. He couldn't even recall how he got it. I remember when he showed Ma, she said that she didn't like the look of it; that he should wash it more. I noticed, but wasn't really paying attention because it was the night after she and my Aunt Vir fought. I'd never known them to fight like that. I couldn't hear everything, but my aunt didn't think it was a good idea to be following a near stranger across the Atlantic Ocean with two children in tow and one on the way. Especially when she had just lost her husband. Ma's argument was that Mr. Samuel was a good man. He had been her friend from the time they were young. She said he had savings and a plan. Now, looking back, she must have been out of her head from losing my father. I never could understand why she took up with Mr. Samuel so soon after loosing Da, why she would move us so far from our home. She said that we were lucky to have him, that he loved us."

"And did he?" John asked without thinking and cursed himself for interjecting, but it didn't seem to slow her down.

"I think Mr. Samuel meant well," she said honestly. "He was a nice enough man; didn't raise a hand to any of us, bought Alice sweeties, and ribbons for my hair. But no, he had no real plan and not much by way of savings. I suspect neither Ma nor Da ever understood the difference between a plan and a dream, and I think Mr. Samuel reminded Ma of Da. Because he definitely didn't recognize the difference between the two. My Aunt Vir and Uncle Charlie could see it, too. She had a talk with me. She sat me down, told me that I was old enough to decide for myself. Said I could stay if I wanted. That they were in agreement and would make sure I was looked after; that there was even money enough for some schooling if I wanted it."

"Did you want to stay or go?"

She pressed her lip into a thin line and looked away. "Of course I wanted to stay. I love my aunt and uncle, they are good, kind people. And I loved Easingwold - it was a quiet town, the community was tightly knit together, opinionated, but well meaning. I never thought it was a sensible idea. Even when it was Da's. But Alice wanted to go with Ma. Wanted to follow through with Da's dream and see America. Ma wouldn't hear of Alice staying, and I couldn't stay without Alice. With Ma out of sorts, someone needed to be looking out for both of them. So I went against my aunt and uncle's wishes, and left with my mother."

He squeezed her hands gently.

"We were so sick at sea. I hated the rocking. None of us could keep much down. By the end of the first week, it was clear Mr. Samuel's scratch was turning. He was feverish and in such pain that he wouldn't let anyone touch it. He died midway across the Atlantic, before we even passed into American waters. At first, when we arrived in Philadelphia, Ma wouldn't believe he was dead. She kept saying that it was just a little cut. Then she started to cry and wouldn't stop and it made Alice cry too." Her voice quavered as she continued, "I had to go tell the porter, but before I did, I went through all of Mr. Samuel's things. His savings amounted to thirty pounds. I took his pocket watch and his ring, too. Ma shouted at me, told me to leave him alone and respect the dead. But we had next to no money." She shook her head.

"Ma tried to keep on; we hadn't enough money to get back, and in her mind, she had her brother and sister-in-law to say 'I told you so' even if we did. So, the three of us made do. When the baby she was carrying came out blue and still, she stopped. It was a boy. My brother. She named him after Da, but backwards, George Daniel. Not that it mattered. By then she had taken up with another man headed out west to make his fortune. He was no good but he was a meal ticket and we were hungry, so Ma put up with him. She died of yellow fever in Nebraska. I hated Nebraska. Even before Ma died. So many poor souls come here thinking they will find wealth, only to be chewed up by those with the wealth; digging in their mines, working in their factories, clearing and working their land, felling their trees."

"Fighting their wars," he intoned. She looked at him and her face clouded.

"Yes, fighting their wars," she agreed somberly. He felt one of her thumbs smooth over his palm. "Then picking up the pieces and fitting them together again after the fighting stops. There were no pieces left for me to pick up when everything stopped. We all go on, though, don't we? Pieces or no. I've thought I wouldn't survive any more so many times. You get to the point though, where you realize, that we go on whether we wish it or not. I don't know why I connect the two, because if she were here to see what her sister has fallen to, Alice wouldn't be able to forgive me. But I'm beginning to reckon that not fighting for every bit of joy thrown in my path does their lives and deaths a disservice. It doesn't change anything, but we always cared very much for each other's happiness. I'll always be paying for my choices in this life and ever after, but I want to do right by them even still. They would want me to be as happy as I am able to be."

Her eyes were dry, but she let go of him to rub her hands over her face.

"I miss them," she whispered. "I miss my family." Her shoulders shook for a moment, a sort of dry, silent sob. He swallowed and slowly place his palm on the center of her back. She sucked in a hiccough of air and leaned against him.

"They never called me Annie," she whispered. He slid his arm around her shoulder, snugged her to him, tucked her head beneath his chin, foolishly hoping she wouldn't feel the tears that spilled down his cheeks and into her hair. She held onto him tightly.

"It was only ever Anna," she said. "Anna May Smith if I'd been too cheeky or Ma was vexed. Sometimes I feel like when I die, it will be as if none of us ever existed. Not Ma nor Da, nor Alice. We'll vanish. That's why I wanted to tell you. I don't... You mustn't feel sorry for me, I don't want your pity. I just ... I need someone to know we were here. That we loved each other and despite all of it, we were each of us good people, especially Alice. She would have grown to be such an amazing woman if I could have only kept her safe." She let go of a bone-rattling sigh and his heart ached for her in her sorrow.

"Tell me more about Alice," he said softly, when he could speak again. "What were your favorite songs to sing with her?"

Ignoring the soreness in his back and hips that grew from sitting on the boulders, he listened to her; she told story after story about her sister. She grew more animated with each one, her voice brightened as she wove tales of her family in better times, of growing up in Yorkshire. She was right in her insistence that her parents were good people whose faults lay in how they let their dreams make decisions for them. They loved their daughters dearly. Annie ... _Anna_ felt deeply cherished by them. So had Alice. When her stories were told out she seemed more calm. Not peaceful exactly, but more settled. He was grateful that it was dark and his tears had dried. She still curled against him.

"Thank you," he murmured into her hair.

She cleared her throat. "Whatever for?"

"Telling me. Trusting me with your family and their story. It's a gift, that."

The frogs sang loudly during her silence. "Thank you for listening," she said after a time. "I don't know if this makes sense, but even though some of it is wretched to think about, it was good to talk about them."

He smiled, "I hope you'll tell me more about them when next we have a moment to talk."

"Yes." She nodded. "That would be lovely." Her cheek pressed against his chest. Her hair smelled of almonds. He felt such a contentment. "Oh!" she exclaimed, coming back to herself. "But I've kept you for far too long."

He laughed. "Only long enough for the swelling to go down and my toes to prune."

"And your arse to get sore." She was smiling. He could hear it. She pushed away from him and he felt the absence of her acutely. Once again she was all business and after returning his frock coat to him and using her skirt to dry his foot and knee despite his protest, she proclaimed the swelling noticeably reduced. He re-wrapped the ankle, not pulling the bandage quite so tight. He replaced his sock and boot, while she twisted more water from the scarf and hung it over a low branch. She noticed his questioning look and waved his concern away.

"I'm down here most mornings," she explained. "I'll come get it in the daylight, when it's dry. Which reminds me: do you mind if I ride back up the trail with you? I shouldn't like to trip in the dark."

He nodded, biting back a smirk She was clever indeed; enabling him to save face both coming and going. He would never have agreed to mount and ride Isis while she walked.

"Of course," he said. "But before we return to the sights and sounds of our rather rough surroundings, I'd like to ask you something."

"What?" she asked cautiously, waiting for his words.

He swallowed and like pushing a boulder down a hillside, it took him a little time to find his tipping point. "Might I call you by your proper name when we are alone?" he asked in one breath.

She looked down at her clasped hands. She gave a tight nod. He was afraid she might be crying, but when she looked up it was with a small smile. She nodded again and took a deep breath. "If you like." Her smile grew. "No one's called me Anna May in a dog's age. Longer."

"Then it's time someone started again. It suits you." He took one of her hands back into his. "I know we aren't bidding one another farewell just yet, but this setting seems a bit more appropriate. I wonder if I might I kiss you goodnight, Miss Anna May Smith?"

He could hear her breathing change, could see it in the swelling of her breasts. He immediately regretted his boldness. He couldn't decide if her expression was overwhelmed or horrified. Her chin trembled. The flutter in his gut was replaced with a heavy, sinking feeling.

She didn't pull from his grasp, but she looked at him for long enough that he began to apologize. Then she stepped towards him. Fingertips grazed his cheek, her thumb brushed over his lower lip. Her other hand opened, but only to adjust and secure her grip on him.

"Shhh ... don't you dare say you are sorry, Mr. Bates," she intoned. "Please."

She held his gaze, and she looked for all the world like a woman in pain. He dipped his head when she stepped into the small circle of space he occupied. She rose up on her toes and rested her smooth cheek against his. Her palm was warm on the back of his neck, her other still holding his hand tightly.

"Might I?" he whisper, not daring to be hopeful.

"What would you do if I said no?" she asked, sounding more vulnerable than he had ever heard her. He felt the whisper of her words over his skin. He straightened, confused, searching her eyes.

"I would never kiss you if you didn't wish it," he answered truthfully. "If I've overstepped my bounds, please, tell me."

"No," she said, and then quickly continued. "You ain't overstepped nothing, is all I mean. I ... I want to kiss you so badly sometimes it frightens me."

He smiled at that. It was most decidedly not what he had expected her to say, and for once his brain and mouth seemed to coordinate together in harmony. "You don't seem the sort to run away from your fears, or the things you decided you want for that matter."

She smirked at him and lifted up on her toes again to press a lingering kiss to his cheek. He turned to her as she moved to pull away, stopped just shy of brushing his lips against hers. She didn't close the space between them but she also didn't continue pulling away from him. He heard her breath hitch again. Felt it, he was so close to her.

"I can't," she whispered against his lips. "I want to, but I just can't. I'm sorry."

"Now it's you who mustn't apologize," he joked lightly to cover the sting of disappointment. He offered her a gentle smile as he straightened. She touched his face again, so lightly he barely felt it. She squeezed his hand.

"Would you..." Her gaze held his. She sorted her thoughts and went on, "I won't be headed into town this Sunday, but next, on the first train of the day. Perhaps, if we didn't linger together at the station, but sat with one another on the ride down. That hour on Sunday the front car is always empty."

"I'm not afraid to be seen with you, Anna."

"I know you aren't, but you aren't the only one involved," she said somewhat cryptically, offering no further explanation.

"Sunday after next," he said, hope germinating in him like a seed sending green tendrils through warm dark loam. "Might we meet back here before then? Some morning perhaps? We could work on your dress together."

The brightness of her smile returned. "Yes, that would be agreeable indeed."

"Good. I agree. I mean, yes. It would." He groaned inwardly. Back to tripping over his words. He mounted Isis and helped pull her up behind him. She scooted as far up against the cantle as she could and held tightly to his midsection. He shivered slightly when she rested against his back.

"Check on Jessup, would you?" she asked as he led the tough little paint mare up the shadowed incline. "Make sure he's all right tomorrow. He's still black-balled, mind; but I'll worry if I don't know if he made it back up all right. Even if he is a fool."

He smiled; a feeling of elation grew inside of him, despite her tender denial. "I can do that."

* * *

><p><strong>Thank you all for your kind and supportive words. Your reviews and feedback make my day! Big thanks to bugsfic and Ihelleberry for horse help. And Adri for being Adri. And all of you for being motivating and inspiring. <strong>


	8. Interlude II

He writhed beneath her, above her. Her warmth surrounded him, taking him in, enfolding him, holding him fiercely. And she was smiling. She was smiling and giggling and gasping and kissing him.

_I love you, _she whispered against his throat.

It was then he knew it was a dream. He remembered consciously choosing, willing it all to continue; the slip and press of her skin against his, her heady moans and breathy sighs, their hips tilting tightly together. He could feel the down of her cheek beneath his fingertips, count her eyelashes. Their sweaty bodies moved frantically, entangled in each other, shuddering in the pleasure their union conjured.

He woke to sticky sheets in the not-quite-dark of early morning. Alone, aching, and cold.


	9. Hardening Off

**A/n: Dysfunctional family relationship and mild violence ahead. Thanks for all the encouraging words. From time to time this story is as hard to write as I imagine it is to read. Thanks for sticking with it.**

It was Friday. Anna's birthday, Annie thought distractedly. In a futile attempt at fighting off her worry over the events of the previous night, she counted the days on her hand, Friday the nineteenth of May. She frowned and dug deeper into the post-hole she was working on. She dug and scraped and shoveled until it was too deep. In the end she had to backfill and tamp it down so that it didn't swallow the driftwood entirely. Then it was done and the stick was stood at just the right angle to cradle a particularly curled cross-piece. She was nearly finished with the low fence that edged the plot where she would plant the peppers and tomatoes. Sitting back, she surveyed her work, her satisfaction with the results of her efforts mingling with and marred by the growing unease with herself, with Vi, with her situation. She also did her best to ignore the slow burning need she felt. It was a background hum at this point, ever present whether or not she was thinking about Mr. Bates. _Annie's lucky_, she tried to reason, logically. Alive and well. A lovely garden, a roof over her head, _my_ head. Her thoughts were all torqued about. It was the nineteenth of May, Anna's birthday.

"_My_ birthday," she whispered into the chill of the garden air. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. Fine mess of a morning for it, she mused, shocked awake as she had been.

She swallowed and smothered out thoughts and fears about Vi with thoughts of Anna May. She had begun to think about being Anna; about who she had been before, back in England, in Yorkshire. Something more nipped at the edges on her field of vision or at least her mind's eye. Something that wasn't unwelcome but that made her nervous, but she couldn't quite be sure what it was.  
>She remembered things she hadn't in ages; a night of celebrating with her father and mother, with Alice. Her mother had made a savory pudding. Laughter. She had received a new pen and pencil set from her mother and a dictionary from her father. It had been his and was thick and beautifully worn. She had saved it, left it under the bed she shared with Alice at her aunt and uncle's house. It gave her a sense of peace, thinking of it, that it still existed somewhere back in that world. She hadn't celebrated, hadn't even marked her birthday, not since Alice died. She refused to tell people when it was. Told any of her tricks or Vi's girls as asked that she didn't have a birthday - that she was like Aphrodite risen from the foam.<p>

Prior to Sunday, it had been a very long while since she had thought of Anna. It was easy to hide behind the white lace and whale bones of Alyssum Annie. Alyssum Annie was hard and had learned from her mistakes. She was immune to such nonsense - was no fool. Most importantly she needed nothing and no one; which was the biggest lie of all, but one she told often enough to half-believe. She hadn't thought of Anna or thought of herself as Anna in such a long time. Then he went and asked her and she said it out loud. Said it out loud. Heard the way he repeated it back to her like he was tasting the shape of the name in his mouth. _Anna May Smith_. It conjured up so very many memories, her name; memories and feelings and little fool losses, things she would never see again, like the pen and pencil set, the dictionary, the spotted hen at the farm in Easingwold, who was bold and followed her about the yard, clucking. She almost cried when she thought about how that blooming hen was long dead. She wasn't sure if she liked it or not. It left her distracted and tripping on herself and unsure. She never seemed to be sure of anything this last handful of months, not since John Bates had begun walking past the edges of her existence. (_He would have been a lovely match for Anna May in a different time or a different world_, she thought.) And now Vi was spitting and hissing and clawing from a corner for (she prayed) no reason at all.

She was chilled through, though her gardening had kept her from pulling her shawl from her waist to wrap about her shoulders. She was still shaken from the night, from Vi's outburst. Had begun working in the garden as soon as it was light enough to see, or just after, as Séam woke with the first lightening of dawn and returned to minding bar. Before she fled out back, she stoked the fires and brewed a pot of coffee. She made his - he liked heavy sugar with a splash of cream - and took two scalding swigs of it. It was all she could tolerate at a time; any more and her heart thrummed and her hands shook. This was their compromise; she made the coffee and if a bit went missing from the cup on its way to him, so be it. He smiled and took a sip, then held the mug out to wrap her in a one-armed sleep-warmed hug. He yawned into her hair. He gave encompassing hugs like Vi; hugs that lasted and meant something deep and peaceful and unspoken even if they were rare and only gotten when the givers' guard was down during late nights and early mornings. He kissed her forehead.

"Fern told me," he said. His words were still gravelly with slumber. "Don't pay her no mind. You know how she is."

Annie sighed heavily and nodded. Séam was sweet when he wasn't drunk. Fortunately he only really got drunk Fridays and Saturdays, and never out of control like Vi. He was calculating and sullen, though, and spent the busy times sulking or glowering over the customers in a corner. He was more apt to pick fights with jacks he didn't like the look of. Since it was his job to keep the peace, this tendency yoked him with an undeserved reputation towards surliness and anger. It suited him fine, for most to think him mean. He was tender, really, and affected a false toughness nearly all the time. But he and Annie and Fern understood each other. They kept things smooth, knew the unspoken needs and truths of the other, wove in and out of a sort of dance keeping things harmonious and running with or without Vi's presence; most of the time lately, despite Vi's presence.

The Garden saw slow but steady business through the wee hours of the night and early hours of the morning. Steady enough to stay open, but slow enough to need only one person on bar and one or two whores lounging about. Two to three rooms open and ready for use.

It had been so jarring. She was frightened to consider what Vi thought she was up to to warrant such spite. Tried not to think of her conversation with Daphne on Wednesday, in which Dapne began nosing about Mr. Bates, asking questions she shouldn't have had reason to ask. She didn't think Vi knew about him, but it seemed to get suddenly worse Sunday night, after slipping out back with him. After seeing Mr. Bates off, Annie found that Vi had gone to bed already.

"She locked herself in," Fern had said and shrugged. "Gone a-bed of her own accord. I'd steer clear. She was asking where you'd got to and seemed like to eat anyone as looked at her wrong."

It wasn't quite midnight; a rare occurrence, but not unheard of. Still, it had left Annie feeling nervous and anxious. She worked the floor with Fern and Séam and Jessamine for a while. The Sunday night crowd was usually subdued. That Sunday had been no different. She had only taken two more tricks in the two hours she stayed downstairs. Each was tired and the later one wanting full service, which suited her fine. Jessamine had come nosing about after Fern left to try to sleep for a bit, wondering out loud where the tall ginger-tressed barmaid had gone, acting a bit too much as if she didn't care. Annie wasn't sure how she felt about Jessamine. She seemed to be hiding something, though most were. Annie liked that she seemed strong willed and independent and didn't have a cruel sense of humor. She had a heart shaped face and brown eyes that seemed almost red in the setting sunlight and the thickest brown eyelashes Annie had ever seen. And she was sweet on Fern. And Rosie suddenly nasty to Fern. And Fern always holed up with Séam. Wonderful. Nothing like a triangulation of lovelorn whores to upset the delicate balance of things. She remembered rolling her eyes when she thought it. As if she were any different.

When she did finally go to bed, she crawled in with Dawn, who always bitched a little because Fern's bed was usually open.

"Sorry love, sorry," she whispered. "Vi's in a mood. You know I can't sleep by myself. Please."

Dawn had grumbled but scooted over and pulled Annie in like she was a child woken from a nightmare. Despite being the same diminutive height, Dawn always managed to seem larger than she was. She tucked Annie's head to her breasts and the two women fit themselves together like puzzle pieces on the narrow mattress. Dawn knew. She was one of the few that Annie had explained a bit about how being alone on a bed reminded her of all the hours, months locked in that dark, stagnant, windowless room by herself, waiting for the next bout of pain and indignity and violation. And aside from Séamus, Dawn had been dealing with Vi's bullshit and ego for longer than anyone. She understood and didn't begrudge the girl too much.

Vi had grumbled and stomped about the place for days. She was in rare form - sullen, sour, continually inebriated and banging crates and bottles as she elbowed about the bar. She gave Annie a rather pointed silent treatment. Vi had pulled Rosie in with her starting on Monday night. Kept her there. Annie never minded much when Vi was in a mood, was used to sleeping when and where she could, but Vi didn't usually actively snub her and lock her out. She wasn't sure whether to be bothered or relieved, for Dawn took care of her own needs privately and never bothered Annie, and despite protests, would always curl up maternally with her. In some ways it was nice not having to deal with the results of Vi's excesses. It was strange enough to gnaw at her a bit, but not nearly as loudly or constantly as the low hum of desire that radiated from her whether or not she was thinking of Mr. Bates.

Since Sunday she had been feeling it in her bones. Despite all the drama unfolding around her she had found herself uncharacteristically responsive. She had been enjoying even the inexpert fumbles of drunks and newbs. The handful of tricks that she welcomed, that knew what she liked and enjoyed pleasing her nearly as much as they enjoyed riding out their own release had reduced her to shuddering, full-bodied orgasms. Even this was problematic. Everything she felt only served to rouse her guilt, her sense of remorse and regret. She could do little to dull her body's reactions; knew nothing could be done of the fact that the intimacies she had shared were false and with paying customers and not _him_. It felt wrong and made her self-conscious. No amount of chiding herself and redirected her thoughts seemed to make any difference to the flushing of blood and creaking of bones. It made no matter what she did, or where she was, or how loud Vi screeched at her; her body reached for him, pulsed and opened and wept for him, all the while her eyes remained dry.

She shouldn't have been surprised by Vi, should have seen what was coming. The bitter old cow was her usual Thursday-night piss-drunk self, locked away in her office. Annie had remembered it was Thursday despite being ridiculously distracted by uncouth and decidedly improper thoughts of Mr. Bates, and had made herself scarce during the appropriate afternoon hours, scrubbing vomit from the inside of the outhouse door, which did surprisingly little to discourage her inappropriate thoughts. It was Séam's turn to lock Vi in for the night, and he got off relatively easily, only being called an ingrate and a spoiled whelp of a whore. He came back downstairs grinning.

"She was a kitten tonight," he joked, ducking his head and spoke low so only she could hear him. "Hissing and growling but only swatted at me once."

Hours later, when the noise and hollering stopped Annie had turned to Rosie.

"You want to go tend her or should I?" she asked.

Rosie had sneered and rolled her eyes. "That disgusting old sack can choke on her own sick for all I care."

"I'll be sure to let her know you send your regards." Annie stood and went to the kitchen to get a pitcher of water. She didn't bother to so much as glance at the dark-haired whore.

Upstairs, Vi was passed out cold, strewn across her bed amidst tangled sheets. Rosie hadn't changed them for her; they were rumpled and looked stained. Annie listened to the rasp and wheeze of Vi's breathing as she pottered about. She was adept at ridding the bed of soiled sheets from beneath Vi's unconscious form, had done it countless times before. In less that five minutes she had pushed and pulled the unconscious woman enough to slip the old soiled linens off and fresh ones on. It was simply a matter of doing one side of the bed at a time and rolling Vi around a bit. She filled Vi's bedside water glass and thought about giving the seedlings a drink. On a whim she stopped herself and gathered them up and quick as a whip clipped downstairs, and set them carefully under the back step. She smiled as she climbed back up to Vi's room. It was time, she thought to herself. She would leave them there a day or two to harden them off and then sink them in the ground.

Back in Vi's room she had straightened the papers on the desk, picked up soiled clothing and intimates, towels and hand flannels; the room was a mess. She opened a window while she worked. The late night air was crisp, but not terribly cold. Enough to freshen the room but not chill it. Not too much. It would be steamy warm with alcoholic exhalations come daybreak if she shut it all the way, this much she knew. If she left it cracked an inch or two with the block of wood to hold it open it would be just right.

Everything had looked and smelled much better when she was done. She wasn't sure why she climbed in next to Vi, or tidied the room, maybe as a sort of silent olive branch. She didn't like it when Vi was genuinely cross with her. Besides, Vi always seemed far more a furnace in the dead of night than anyone else in the house. Fern claimed Séamus was the same way, it was a silly argument they laughed over from time to time; who was the better stove, Séam or Vi.

Annie woke in a panic, scrambling, falling, being pushed out of bed, screamed at, and struck. Vi wasn't even making any sense. Just hollering at her over and over to get the fuck out, calling her an ungrateful whore and a conniving little cunt and all manner of names. It was still dark outside. Middle of the night. Even drunk out of her mind Vi had never been like that. Annie had scrambled, half awake and frantic to the desk, fumbled for and found the key. Everything in Vi's reach was thrown at her, including the full glass of water, which mercifully shattered a piece away. She managed to get out and close and lock the door before Vi could inflict any more damage. She didn't pick up any glass in her feet, but suspected Vi might if no one swept it before she woke again. She stood outside the locked door with the key in her hands and sank to her knees, shaking, fighting back tears. She slowed her breathing, despite Vi's continued screeching and hollering. Eventually she pushed herself up and yawned and went down the stairs. What else was there to do? She didn't like to disturb Dawn so late when the woman woke before daybreak to start the cooking.

Fern was towering over the bar. The girl had more than fourteen inches on her, was easily the tallest woman Annie had ever seen. She was solid too, in a hard, wiry way. Fern was the only one of the girls that was assigned to work when Seam was asleep. Annie was confident enough in the lightness of Séam's sleep to take over from time to time in the wee hours, but Fern was assigned those times. She was a force to be reckoned with if she felt threatened, Fern was. The red haired giantess took in her nod. Sighed deeply and rolled her clear forest-green eyes. "The fuck was that about, at four in the goddamned morning?"

She shook her head and decended the last few steps. There were three patrons lazing about, half-conscious. The one at the bar, Leroy, (Annie couldn't remember his last name,) laughed and knocked back his whiskey. "That's Vi. Probably won't even remember tomorrow."

"She'll remember how short you cock is gonna be if she heard you were saying so," Annie snapped and shot a defensive warning glare at the slouched over lime-kiln worker.

Fern pulled her into the kitchen and held her at arms length to look her over.

"You alright, Little Bird?" Fern asked with raised eyebrows. Annie nodded, handed over the key and collapsed against Fern's chest, sucking in a deep breath. Fern held her tightly and rubbed her back. "You know how she gets on a Thursday. Sounds like she isn't quite ready to bury whatever hatchet she is holding. Gotta lay low."

Annie counted freckles on the extraordinarily tall woman's bosoms where they spilled over top her corset. Nodded. Annie loved Fern's freckles. She knew the fashion was to have pale and creamy skin and didn't like her own barely there freckles, but Fern's were so plentiful and fascinatingly dark and matched the color of her flaming ginger hair so completely that Annie couldn't help but adore them. After a few quiet moments, she pushed out of Fern's tight embrace and looked up at her. Tugged lightly on Fern's long red-orange braid.

"She's getting bad, Fern. Worse than I've ever seen her."

"I know, Little Bird," Fern sighed. "I know."

Annie frowned and rubbed her elbow, it was starting to hurt. She must have fallen on it. "Why don't you go curl up with Séam for a few hours, Fernlet. I can hold down the bar. I'll yell if I need help. No use in us both being awake, and Lord knows I won't be sleeping anytime soon."

Fern had looked at her for a minute, and nodded. "Don't let Rosie give you shit, she's holed up with a handjob in room two. Been talking high and mighty all night, working both sides, or trying to. Caught between being a bitch, a peacock, and an ass-licker. Watch out for her, and shout if anything gets out of hand."

"You know I will. Go, warm up with that fool boy." Annie smiled, swatted Fern's rump as the woman turned to go. Séam was a year or two older than she was, which meant he was around twenty when Vi bought her, saved her from A.G. Fellers. He had been there even then, had been with Vi and her whores from the time he was little. He couldn't remember his mother, but Vi had assured him she was a good girl - as far as whores went - and that Vi had sworn to his mother to look after him on her deathbed. There were women enough to be mothered in a whorehouse, but still, Annie felt sorry for him that it was all he had known. She still saw him as the gawky twenty year-old she had first met; not quite grown to fit his frame, all spindly and feigning fierceness. Even then he had had her back, given her helpful hints, taught her the ins and outs of dealing with Vi. And he was the first man she had encountered in literally years that didn't try to take advantage of her. He was one of a small handful she nearly trusted.

In the weak light of the early Friday morning sun, Seam's coffee losing its battle to stoke her alertness, she touched the seedlings and then rubbed her elbow. She was so thankful she had moved them. Vi's punishments were meted out randomly and without logic. She would not have put it past the woman to snip the sprouts with her scissors out of spite, simply because she knew they were important to Annie.

Her driftwood project as complete as it was like to be for now, she clambored down the riverbank slope to wash her hands and arms in the San Lorenzo. She heard the slow crunch of hoof-falls on river rock and knew it was him. Of course it was him; she was filthy and in her corset and bloomers, a shawl tied about her waist. She sighed and frowned at the way her heartbeat picked up at the thought of him.

She'd been walking around wet and open since they had spoken on Sunday. She moved about distracted by the confusing combination of arousal and shame. It was not that she wasn't used to such feelings - they had been her bread and butter for a third of her life. But in conjunction with him, she felt a sense of lightness; green and unfurling like dewy fiddleheads during the late winter rains, reaching towards the light. Something was different, something had shifted, and it swelled, ancient as the forest being cut down around her; it swelled until it filled her. Even still, all of it was tempered with dread. In her whole life she had never seemed to be able to hold onto the things or people that brought her joy. Still, she thought about what she had said to him, that her family would want her to be as happy as she could be.

_So be it_, she thought. _It's my birthday, after all_.

She couldn't deny that he made her feel like a better version of herself when she was with him.

"Good morning, Mr. Bates," she said, standing, drying her hands and arms and pulling the crocheted shawl from her waist to wrap around her shoulders.

* * *

><p><strong>Y'all doing ok? I know this was a rough one. Hang in there, changes are coming...<strong>


	10. Mending

"_Good morning, Mr. Bates," she said, standing, drying her hands and arms and pulling the crocheted shawl from her waist to wrap around her shoulders._

...

"How did you know it was me?" he asked as he dismounted Pharaoh, who immediatly busied himself with a patch of miner's lettuce growing from the riverbank. John held tight to his smile, trying to keep from loosing it, but as usual the joy he felt upon seeing her distracted him. His heart beat loudly in his chest. He was looking forward to what he had planned.

"Who else would be riding back here?" She rolled her eyes. Her own smile crept across her face, despite several attempts to still it. "Trying to catch me unawares so as to eavesdrop again?"

He felt the heat rise in his neck and cheeks anew as he fought for words. He could not mistake the playfulness of her tone, the enthusiasm behind her smile, but his flustered conscience humbled him.

"I'm only teasing Mr. Bates. Besides I should like to think I haven't any secrets I'd wish to keep from you, even if that isn't entirely true."

"Still, a gentleman doesn't linger quietly and listen as I did." He looked at her from under the brim of his hat.

"Good thing you happen to be a gentleman's gentleman and not a proper gentlemen. There is a bit of leeway there, I'd wager. And I am only teasing. I haven't anything much to hide; what you see is what you get. Well, see or overhear." She grinned brightly and swayed from side to side.

"Have you many?" he asked, immediately cursing himself further.

"Many?" Golden eyebrows raised in question.

"Secrets." He said the word and cringed at himself for nosing into her private affairs.

"Oh Lord!" She laughed to herself. "A whore has a hundred and one secrets for each of her tricks. So I suppose that gives me well over a hundred thousand. I'm ever so good at secret keeping." Her smile was radiant. Playful. "But I haven't any that I wouldn't tell you if you really wanted to know. And none that I mind a friend over-hearing if they are being carelessly blathered out by the great San Lorenzo river." She motioned grandiosely at the glorified boulder-strewn creek to which she referred, then looked at him and lowered her voice. "Not a friend such as you."

The way she said it. He swallowed and held her gaze; believed that she didn't hold his eavesdropping on Wednesday against him, but wondered desperately how to respond. He had been turning both his behavior and what he heard over again and again in his mind. He was slightly ashamed of himself but the knowledge made him feel bold. She fancied him. She more than fancied him, and he had been bursting from it since he had found out.

He had been riding Pharaoh along the San Lorenzo's western bank, discovering multiple paths to the rough trail from behind most of the wooden businesses that flanked it. He came upon them while they were giggling and splashing about. He heard them and held back at a reasonable distance, but their words carried, even if he couldn't see them. It had been Annie and the young one that wasn't yet comfortable in her own skin. The timid girl with the mousy, brown hair. A tangle of blackberry brambles blocked his view. They grew tall and wide over a fallen tree, big as a house and all white-blossomed and green-berried.

A gentleman would have announced his presence or walked away. It's just that he recognized the melodic sound of her laughter. When he had heard it his ears had perked up. He hadn't been _just_ exploring the edge of the San Lorenzo and he knew it. He had been hoping to find her. To again speak with her in confidence.

At the sound of her voice, John Bates had dismounted and led Pharaoh along the pebbled beach to a place where the bank of the river had collapsed into a pile of sandy soil, sprouted all over with a fresh crop of dewy grass. He offered the bay gelding a chance to lip at it while he tried to listen as subtly as he could.

"Arch your back a bit more," Annie had instructed evenly, as though she were teaching someone to sew or cook. His shame had been immediate. He shouldn't be listening. Still he hadn't wanted to interrupt them; couldn't bear to interrupt them, for she seemed like she was having a proper bit of fun, despite her frustration with the younger woman. She sounded for all the world like an older sister, dolling out wisdoms and proprieties. They were of an illicit sort, but proprieties nonetheless.

"No, that's hunching, not arching. No. Daph, love, you're doing it four kinds of wrong. Watch. Like this. See? You need to push your tits out and tilt your chin down a bit so that you're looking up at him."

"How is this?" Daphne asked hopefully.

"Your tits are fine, but you are giving yourself a horrible double chin holding your head like that. Try to lengthen you neck."

"Like this?"

"No, not exactly." He hadn't realized a snort could sound delicate, but hers certainly did. "Daph, we are gonna have to come up with another plan. You really are no good at this. You are lucky that a goodly number of men are fond of a sweet farmer's daughter type."

He could picture her with her hands on her hips, appraising the younger girl with a tilted head. She spoke truthfully but her words were kindly meant. Daphne pulled him from his imaginings.

"Annie can I ask you something?"

"You can try, Daph."

"Do you like him? Really, I mean. Are you sweet on him?" The girl's voice was reedy and as timid as she was.

He held his breath, felt something open and drop uncomfortably within himself and heard her heavy sigh. "I can't see how any of that should concern you."

Daphne was asking about him. He had known it was a bit cocky to assume she had no other ... his first thought was the word _beaus_, but that was immediately substituted with _interests_. They had no understanding. In that moment though, despite how she evaded the question, he could feel the two of them imagining his face.

"It don't concern me," Daphne stated somewhat sheepishly. "I just seen't how you talk to him. And after, how you smile when you think there ain't no one looking. I like him. He's nice. I passed him on the street once and he tipped his hat, like I were a proper girl. Made me feel near ten feet tall."

He had smiled despite himself then. Remembered the moment the teen girl had spoken of with a new fondness. He had been walking Pharaoh about town that day on errands for His Lordship, as the man's liquor supply had been running low and he was in need of some ointment for his arthritis. She had looked like a rabbit; wide-eyed and fearful. All he had done was touch his hat and nod at her and she had visibly straightened and puffed up. She had offered him a clumsy curtsy in return and scurried on, not looking back. He remembered smiling to himself at the time, wishing her well, hoping her life wasn't too wretched. She seemed a good, but lost soul. So very many were.

"God help me if I'm obvious enough for you to notice." Annie's tone was brassy and humorous but he heard the genuine worry hidden in it and wanted to ask her why.

"I notice plenty," the girl had insisted.

"Sure you do, Daphne."

"I do!"

Then their discussion broke down into a series of shrieks and splashes. Full throated, squealing laughter filled the air.

He wasn't watching, but he wanted to be. He wanted to see her laughing; her smile wide, her hair wet. He wanted to see her joyful. The splashing slowed and stopped, the giggling subsided.

Alright," Annie said finally. "Now quit distracting me and pretend I'm that jack from last night. Show me how you were flirting on him. Because let me tell you, after the way I saw him looking at you when he came in you must have been doing something wrong if you chased him to Rosie."

He had listened with a fond smile as Annie continued to matter-of-factly walk Daphne through the ins and outs of seductive poses and come-hither postures.

"Come on," Annie said, when the lesson continued to go nowhere. "We should probably get back - you drink your tea yet?"

"Not yet, I can't bear it first thing in the morning. But really Annie, are you sweet on him?"

John was surprised that the girl hadn't let the topic drop. Daphne had found a bone to gnaw on and seemed entirely distracted by it. It seemed Annie was surprised too, for her words were spoken sharply and in a rush. "That's the first thing you gotta get through your addled brain. It doesn't matter if you're sweet on someone or not. We don't get to be sweet on any man. It isn't in the cards for us as do the whoring, Daph."

"You _are_ sweet on him then, aren't you?" she chirped after they had practiced for a few more minutes.

"Oh, for Christ's sake. _Yes_! I'm sweet on him! And if you breathe a word of that to anyone, I'll hide Vi's flask and tell her you did it. Now quit pestering me."

"Oh no, don't do that! Please! I wouldn't tell anyone!" The girl's voice rose, panicked. To the degree that Annie immediately hushed her and apologized.

"I wasn't serious, Daph. Calm down. I wouldn't say anything of the sort. Just let's not be talking about it, or him, is all. It isn't right that I should be sweet on him; I haven't the right to meddle with a good, upstanding man like him. Nor do I want to cause any trouble for him with his boss. Don't worry. Go, go on up love. You still need to drink your tea and I want a few more minutes peace before I join you."

The girl sighed dramatically. "It tastes so terrible, though."

"Well, you best learn to like it. You ever miscarried?"

"No."

"You don't want to. Most places won't give you a choice, they'll make sure you lose it, one way or t'other, which is even worse. Go on up and drink it and be grateful."

His stomach sank as he realized with awful clarity that she was speaking from experience. He wondered just how many other horrors she hid behind her smile. He could hear that smile as she continued on, "As for the jacks, just try not to force it so. You do all right when you relax into yourself."

"If you say so." Daphne said as she moved up the bank sounding decidedly doubtful.

Pharaoh had snorted then and given him away; he had had to reveal himself. To his horror, when he stepped around the blackberry brambles she had been nearly nude, clad in only a very damp, very sheer chemise and bloomers. Yet she had welcomed him with unabashed warmth, entirely unashamed of her body. He was left dealing with his own shame, silently willing his body into submission as it immediately betrayed his baser urges.

"I'm sorry Anna," he stuttered, stumbling over his words, not knowing where to look or how to feel about her state of undress. "I didn't mean to interrupt your private time. I'll come back later when you..."

"Please, Mr. Bates!" she had interrupted, waving her hands as if to stave off his embarrassment. "You needn't avert your eyes. It's nothing everyone 'round these parts haven't seen less than half a hundred times." Her voice took a slightly more private tone when she continued, "Stay, would you? I apologize if I've offended your sensibilities. I can put on my corset if you'd rather and go borrow a shawl besides, but I'm afraid everything else is still drying.

She waited to hear his response. Made no move to get the constrictive undergarment from where it hung nearby.

"Are you more at ease without it?" he asked, feeling awkward and abashed for interrupting her morning, not wanting her to be uncomfortable because of his intrusion.

She shrugged. "A bit."

"Then you should forgo it while you can," he stated evenly. He hoped he didn't look too pained when he continued, "Perhaps you could go suss out that shawl?"

"Yes." She gave a quick nod. "I'll be back down shortly, Mr. Bates. Oh! And your book. I've been meaning to return it. We all of us enjoyed a new story so!"

With that she had clambered up the river bank and disappeared into the Garden - if the sound of the door opening and closing was any indication. A few minutes later Anna returned gripping the brown paper wrapped book in the same hand that held a dark blue shawl tightly closed about her shoulders. "To preserve your honor, Mr. Bates," she had teased gently. She tossed him an oven-warm scone, leaving him no choice but to catch it and then watched him expectantly until he began eating it. He was momentarily distracted by the morsel, delicious as it was. It wasn't dry like he was used to, but moist and cut through with bits of canned peaches.

"I'm sorry," Anna explained, adjusting the shawl around her shoulders. "I just finished washing clothes with Daphne and wasn't expecting you."

"It was rude of me," he said after he swallowed another bite of scone. "To come unannounced and uninvited like this."

"You are never uninvited, Mr. Bates; I always welcome your presence. Though for your sake I probably shouldn't."

He didn't know how to respond to her when she said things like that. He wished she wouldn't. "I thought we could work on your dress. Like we talked about. "

"What, now?"

"It doesn't have to be now, I can come back."

"No, I have the dress down here actually. It's a bit damp still is all," she said. As an afterthought she handed him the brown paper package. "Here. It was lovely of you to lend it to me," she said with a smile. "I hope it isn't too much trouble, but I wrote down the words I'm not familiar with on the paper. Perhaps you could look it over for me and educate me a bit?" She shrugged sheepishly as she walked over to a low boulder and pulled the dress from where it lay round the other side in the sun. "I haven't a dictionary."

"Of course," he intoned, delighted to be able to help. She brought the dress over and they settled easily into discussing what could and could not be salvaged. Some stains he thought he could remove, others he wasn't so sure. But he enjoyed the wide easiness of her smile as they spoke. She had draped it over a small-leafed huckleberry bush (He had had no idea, but she had tilted her head toward it and intoned "huckleberry" when she had lain the dress over it. She liked knowing the proper names for things, he'd noticed.) and they stood side by side considering it together. The front panel had so many tears and stains, they decided it was more work than it was worth. He point out where the seams could be ripped and reworked to replace the panel entirely.

"A solid fabric the color of the flowers should look comely. I can salvage some of the original material for piping and embellishing. Or we could cut strips of it and alternate the printed calico with a sold color. It would require less new fabric to do it that way and it would look unique. You think about what you would like. In the meantime, let me show you how to work on this seam here and the other at the side of the bodice. When we go to town next Sunday you could pick out some fabric," he stated enthusiastically. It pleased him inordinately that in this small thing he could be of help to her.

It surprised him when she frowned and stiffened a bit next to him. "Couldn't you just select something suitable for me when you go to town for the Earl? I trust your judgement."

"Well of course, but it would be best for you to come with me to see what suits you." He searched her face; her eyes had gone distant. She seemed shuttered and closed off all of the sudden.

"I couldn't." She clasped her hands, held them tightly and rubbed the heel of one hand with the thumb of the other. When he tried to catch her eye, she looked away.

"Why ever not?" he had asked, confused at her sudden change in demeanor.

After a bit more prodding, she finally admitted that the shop-girls would likely be rude to her. She glanced into the bushes and then off into the treetops. "It's not new, how people treat me, but it still isn't pleasant. I shouldn't like to make a scene. Nor would I wish for you to bear witness to such nonsense; you might be tempted to do something foolishly gallant to protect your notion of my honor."

He hadn't known what to say to that, but he could feel anger lick through his gut like wood catching flame at the thought of anyone mistreating Anna. He frowned deeply.

She looked at him then like she was measuring her words. "Thank you for this; for teaching me. And thank you for last Sunday. For listening to me. For being kind. There is so much of my life I don't speak of, sometimes it's as if it never happened, and sometimes that's how I like it. But talking about it gives it meaning, gives it breath. And knowing you know, somehow it makes me feel less alone in the world, if that makes any sense at all."

It took him a moment to summon up the words to respond. "More than you know," he murmured and winced at the emotional sounding roughness he heard.

She picked at the dress. "I feel like I owe you an explanation, for why I couldn't kiss you."

"You don't owe me anything," he interrupted, mildly horrified at the turn in the conversation.

She looked at him doubtfully. "We are of differing opinion on this. But I want to try to explain."

He couldn't deny her and raised his eyebrows for her to continue.

"Vi lets us make our own rules. About what we want done to us. What we will do. We set our own limits. Rosie and Delphi, for example, like it up the bum. I don't." She blushed and looked away. From the heat in his own face he assumed he was a brighter shade of crimson than she. He cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"I apologize Mr. Bates, but the nature of my life is vulgar. So much so, I sometimes forget what does and does not belong in everyday conversation, but I promise I do have a point to my words. The other place; there were no rules for tricks to abide. It ... Well... Not having say makes you appreciate what say you have when you have it... I'm not making any sense." She sighed heavily.

"It is good you have some choice in the matter," he said feeling inadequate and foolish, then horrified when the depth of what she was saying hit him. At the other place the tricks used her however they wanted; without restriction. The bile rose in his throat. He swallowed hard and clenched his jaw, struggled to keep his expression neutral. He had never wanted to hurt another person as much as he wanted to hurt the man, the men, that had done that to her.

"Since I've been here, at the Garden, I went back to not kissing on the mouth. It was a rule I had when I first came to Santa Cruz with Alice; when I was working in the shadows of the alleys and wharves. Everything else was — is — bad enough. It helps me keep a distance. To keep that piece of myself to myself."

He was deeply and suddenly ashamed to have taken advantage of the moments after she had poured out the story of her life. His stomach twisted about. "I'll not ask it of you again. I'm sorry."

She chuffed and lightly swatted his arm. "Don't be daft. Did you not hear me when I said I'd been wanting to kiss you all day? I haven't longed to kiss anyone since I was fourteen and thought myself in love with the neighbor boy. It's unnerving to want it." She touched his sleeve, held onto it with her thumb and forefinger, turned so that she faced him, though she wouldn't quite meet his eyes. "To want _you_, Mr. Bates." She looked at him then and smiled sheepishly. "I shouldn't, but pretending I don't feels like a lie and I like that there is honesty between us."

"Do you?" He wasn't sure exactly what he was asking.

She looked at the ground. "I wish I could say I don't but I do."

"But you won't kiss me," he murmured.

"No." She frowned.

"Why not?"

"I'm ... afraid," she whispered.

"Of...?"

"Of kissing you proper and having to walk back in there and sell myself - repeatedly - whether I want it or not." She worked her jaw a bit after she finished talking as though she needed to chew on her words. He didn't like how lost she looked; how alone she seemed. It was so easy to push the visceral realities of her life into the shadows. At least it was for him. She had to live with it, every hour of the day. He bit his tongue. Hard enough that he tasted blood.

"What _do_ you want?" he spoke finally, quietly, with such depth of feeling it embarrassed him a bit. He tried to ask her so many other questions with his tone, with his eyes. To admit to sins for which he'd never atone, to convey how deeply he wasn't worthy of her and how much he wanted her anyway.

She looked at him, held his gaze; answering him silently. To his disbelief he watched desire flow from her, unguarded. The space they shared charged like the atmosphere during an electrical storm. Her fingertips were cold on his cheek. He found himself in a confused, floating state of disbelief, hope, and answering desire.

"I'm a crippled old man," he finally stated, with defeated honesty. "But I ... I would do right by you..." He felt his words like a shiver. The intent behind them made his stomach drop and his breath quicken.

"Of course you would. I... I know you would." She frowned. "You may not be a young man, Mr. Bates, but you are no old man. As for the rest of it, you seem perfectly capable to me. It isn't that." She opened her hand and rested her palm between them on his chest kept her eyes trained there.

"What is it then?" he asked in a whisper. He brushed a few bothersome strands of hair behind the delicate shell of her ear. Still, she would not meet his eye.

"You'd be better served to concern yourself with if I could do right by you. Because, I couldn't. No matter what I did or how hard I persevered."

He wasn't quite sure exactly when she had leaned into him or when he had begun to circle her shoulders with his arms, but he did, and he found her hands had crept up his ribs and now spread wide and flat against his back. He wouldn't challenge her notion just yet, for she had already 'done right' by him over and again. Instead he basked in the warmth of her small body and the sun and swayed gently, enjoying the companionable silence that settled between the two of them.

"You let me worry about all of that," he finally murmured into her hair, laying first one then two kisses on the crown of her head. "Why don't we stick to sewing lessons on this beautiful morning and leave the rest for now."

She nodded. She searched his eyes for a moment, seemed disbelieving of the love he hoped she saw there. "Sewing lessons," she said finally.

And true to his word, he left it all alone and spent the next while showing her different techniques and helping to guide her choice of stitches.

When he rode out from behind the Garden he turned the horse towards Mrs. Ballard's family homestead. His ankle was getting bad enough to make mounting the horses shockingly painful without using a rock or pasture rail or dropping the stirrup as low as he could and re-buckling it to the proper height once he was astride. He had no trust for most of the medical profession, but the so-called witch woman was a different story entirely. And it would make Anna smile when he told her.

Sewing had been as safe a reason to pay her another visit as any, respectable and purposeful; though in truth he only wanted to be near her, to hear her voice, have a chance or two to joke with her and hear her laughter. He had been delighted by the light in her eyes when he offered to show her a few different stitches on Wednesday and was now charmed by her reaction when he asked how her dress was progressing. Her eyebrows shot up and her smile was immediate. She told him of the spot along the side of the bodice she had picked out and reworked over the last few days. The lilt in her voice rolled brightly. "I think you'll be pleased with my work. I'm getting much better."

He smiled. "I'm not surprised. You have a good eye and a steady hand. I was impressed with you the other morning; I only ever had to show you a stitch once, and after only two or three tries, you were able to match it."

"You are a natural teacher," she said brightly. "My mother was not. Though I've wished time and again that I'd paid closer mind to her instructions when I was a girl. She herself liked to sew and always made my clothes for me. I whinged about my lessons enough that she finally gave in and stopped making me practice."

"Well, you have her talent for it, now that you aren't fighting it," he said jovially. He grinned at her, lost himself for a long moment in the blue of her eyes. She made no move to look away. He wasn't expecting the sweet jolt that ran the length of his spine when she rested her palm over his heart, or how it radiated out to encompass his entire person when she rose up on her toes to kiss him. It wasn't anything more that the lightest touch of her lips to his. He might have thought he'd imagined it if not for the carnal, raw sound of her breath mingling with his. She kissed him again, (he loosed a strangled noise when she did) caught his lower lip between her own and touched it with the tip of her tongue. As though it was the most normal thing in the world to render them both trembling and feverish with the slightest of touches. As though it didn't cleave the length of his soul open to feel her so intimately. He pulled away to look at her, wide-eyed and confused.

"I thought ... you said ...," he began stupidly, unable to form a cogent sentence.

"I know what I said." She trailed her fingertips across the clean-shaven roughness of his cheek and looked at him with such longing he felt himself begin to harden. He began to step away from her, embarrassed by his reaction, but she raised herself up on her toes and threaded soft, strong fingers through the short hair at the back of his neck and pulled him down to her. She sought his mouth again in a way that left him with no doubts about her feelings on the matter. He forgot to breathe; was aware only of the honeyed carnality of her touch, her lips on his, the press of her small breasts against him, the graceful curve of her back. He lost himself in her for the moments that she was in his arms, gasped raggedly when she finally ended the kiss and pressed her cheek to his chest. He couldn't stop the fool grin from spreading over his face or fail to notice the pink blush that flushed Anna's fair shoulders. They stood together, listening to the black-crested mountain jays' harsh arguments with one another as they boldly flapped from boulder to branch. Up the mountainside the thunder of a dynamite blast echoed resoundingly, silencing the jays' raucous chorus. John made a humming sound into Anna's hair.

"So do I compare favorably to the neighbor boy?" he asked with a cheeky smile when he could speak again.

"I never said I kissed him," she said quietly, grown suddenly serious, sounding almost shy. "Only that I wanted to. I've never had a proper first kiss," she continued in a small voice. "Not one I wanted, anyway."

He tightened his arms around her as comprehension slowly filtered through the loud rushing of blood in his ears. Tipping her chin with his finger so that he looked her in the eye, he couldn't for the life of him find the words to express himself. Instead, he leaned down and kissed her again - as tenderly and reverently as he could - in an attempt to convey what wouldn't let itself be said. He felt her smile against his lips.

"You have now," his whisper was rough; he did not want to let her go.

"I suppose I have, at that," she murmured, still smiling.

He remembered the purpose of his visit suddenly and cleared his throat with newfound nervousness.

"Would you join me for a ride on Isis and Pharaoh?" he asked her after a few moments.

She stepped away from him and scowled. He would never tell her so, but even her scowl was charming.

"Just because I kissed you doesn't mean ... We can't walk out together, Mr. Bates. I'll not have the whole of the camp see or hear about us together any more than they already have. You have a reputation to maintain."

"It is just a bit of a ride. You can't tell me you wouldn't enjoy it." He found himself smiling awkwardly; growing concerned that she genuinely would not accompany him on the excursion he had worked rather diligently to arrange.

"Of course I would enjoy it," she countered. "I wonder though, what would your Duke have to say about this? I doubt he'd like the idea of a lady of the night soiling his saddle. Besides, Vi's in a right mood this week."

"He knows about you, Anna," he blurted, choosing to. "We don't have to hide. I've already secured his permission."

"His permission? Permission to do what exactly?" In her words he heard a hardness he hadn't before. She was suddenly stretched tight, like the skin of a drumhead.

He was afraid to tell her the full extent of what he and the Earl of Grantham had discussed, that in addition to permitting her to ride Isis, the peer had given his word that Bates' respectful association with and wooing of the woman would not cost him his place.

"Permission for you to handle and ride his horses."

"Is that so? And what exactly did you tell him to obtain such permission?" He felt a little like an overgrown mouse caught between the paws of a cat. It would seem her mood was strange and changeable this morning.

John Bates smiled uncomfortably. He had an instinctive need to touch her, to remind her that he meant well, that he wasn't like the others, that anything he had done, he had done out of respect for her and desire to do right by her. Instead he ducked his head and awkwardly pressed his cheek to hers to whisper, "You are a singularly remarkable woman, Anna May Smith, and we both know I don't deserve to be trapped by my words." He caught up her small hand in his own and kissed it gently; her skin was soft, though he could feel smooth, hard callouses on her palm. He could feel her body singing with tension.

He began to straighten, chastising himself for being blunt and overly familiar, but she reached out and held his hand. She took a step back into him, slipped her arms around his trunk and held tightly to him. Taking several long breaths before she spoke, she turned her face to his throat, her body sinking into their embrace. "I'm sorry. It's been a trying night and you're right, you don't deserve any maltreatment on account of my own moodiness."

"Let me improve your mood. Come riding with me, Anna."

He felt her sigh against his throat.

"To what end Mr. Bates?" she asked quietly.

"Just come with me. Mrs. Ballard - Miss Minnie - she wanted me to give you this... It includes a note for Vi to explain and justify your absence."

He offered her the note, pulled it from his pocket where it nestled with two others. One to his mother. One addressed vaguely, with only given names and hope. Both were rather heavy compared to Mrs. Ballard's envelope.

He knew what the letter said. Mrs. Ballard had spoken the words out loud on Wednesday when she had written them for him:

_"Morning Dearheart,_

_I need you to come up today. I've asked Mr. Bates to bring you as he owes me a favor for looking at his knee and ankle and I'm hoping to be finished with you before Vi wakes up. (It is Friday after all, you should have until well after noon.)_

_If you don't want to be seen riding with Mr. Bates, I'm sure he is clever enough to arrange an agreeable meeting place and a discreet path._

_Hurry along now, love._

_-Minnerva J. Ballard_

_Post Script: I've enclosed a note telling Vi to piss off if she wakes up and finds you gone. Well, not exactly that, but it explains and should keep her quiet and mostly happy."_

It was a misdirection; not a proper falsehood. He knew he couldn't mislead her even that much.

"She really doesn't need you for anything," he said as she began reading. "She has an order ready for the Garden she will have you deliver, to lend the outing a bit of authenticity. She just wanted to make sure you accepted my offer."

"That woman and her meddling," Annie stated, rolling her eyes. "I know she means well, but some days... Did she put you up to this nonsense?"

"No. The horses were my notion. I thought after how you were with Isis that you might enjoy some more time with her." He dropped his head. "And I wanted to while away some more time with you." He regarded her and smiled. "You'll be pleased; Mrs. Ballard saw to my leg on Wednesday afternoon, after our sewing lesson. She began asking on you and ... "

Annie laughed and shook her head. "Let me guess; shortly thereafter she had wheedled your intentions out of you?"

He didn't say anything, he didn't need to.

"After that she wouldn't accept payment and instead concocted a plan?"

"When I told her my idea, she suggested that Friday and Sunday mornings where usually the times you had the most leeway. So here we are."

"Well, at the very least you went to see her for your leg." She looked mildly exasperated, but not angry. "She has a gift that woman. In healing, not necessarily plotting. What did she say about your leg? I beg your pardon. That isn't any of my concern."

He touched her hand, looked at her sidelong. "I'd like it to be your concern." She shivered and laced her fingers tightly through his. "She believes that much of the pain is due to tightness in ligaments and tendons that occurred when the original break was healing. She has given me her advice regarding the task of loosening it. Now I must be diligent in enacting her instructions. She has also prescribed me a foul tasting tea that takes the edge off. And has re-supplied me with the rub you so kindly gave me, as well as another liniment of her own concoction. I feel a difference, just in a day and a half. It's no cure, but I am hopeful that it will help."

"I'm ever so pleased." Her smile was genuine. "That _is_ good news."

She smirked and shook her head. "Well Mr. Bates, I suppose I stand no chance if the two of you are in cahoots. I have no wish to cause talk and speculation, even if your Duke is fool enough to allow me use of his horse."

He watched her expression shift and could tell she was giving in to the temptation of a ride on horseback. He felt his ears flush with anticipation. She sighed, relenting.

"Where do you propose we meet?" she finally asked.

"There is a deer trail behind the Queen of Hearts that would lead us in the right direction. Care to meet me there in a quarter of an hour?" he asked shyly.

She cocked her head. The grin that finally emerged on her face shone brightly. "All right then," she relented. "Let me just go make myself presentable. Half an hour. Behind the Queen of Hearts it is."


	11. Ablutions

John Bates didn't quite know what to do with himself as he watched Anna Smith pick her way up the trail to the Garden. He felt an odd mixture of excitement and apprehension, for as much thought and effort as he had put into arranging things, he hadn't been convinced she would agree to any of it. The ghost of her lips lingered on his, and he was burning from it. He would have liked to take a turn in a bath himself, or the cold water of the creek, for that matter. He settled instead on bending down awkwardly to splash some of the San Lorenzo over his face. He could still feel her on his lips, the press of her hand small and cold on the center of her chest. He distracted himself by running over his short list of remaining tasks.

His morning had already been busy. He had ridden by Mrs. Ballard's property earlier, to carefully stow the proper picnic that Norah-Jane had made for him. Mrs. Ballard had given him keys to the lean-to farthest from the house and closest to the tree-fringed meadow John planned to use. He'd stowed the food there and found the items Mrs. Ballard had promised to leave for him. In a barely-used wooden crate sat a neatly folded pile of wool blankets and several cushions. There was a small gingham tablecloth and a linen napkin for each of them. To his surprise she had also left a few Ameorican-style biscuits wrapped in waxed paper, tied with twine, and a small jar of fruit preserves. His ankle and knee were somewhat improved but he still walked gingerly. Once out in the meadow, he selected a spot against a few granite boulders in the far northeastern corner and laid the blankets out, ungainly bending to favor his bad leg. He unpacked the crate and flipped it over to use it for a table; covered it with the gingham. He wanted to pick her a bouquet of the wild sweat peas, but he worried it would be too much. After he made sure all was ready, he had ridden Pharaoh by the stables to see Isis properly groomed. She always managed to roll in filth right before being taken out.

Behind the Garden, an eventful hour later, he wiped his wet face with his handkerchief and hesitated with his final task, one he'd been putting off since the morning before. He straightened his hat, used one of the stray boulders as a step up to mount Pharaoh and rode directly to the post office. It was privately run by one self-proclaimed Postmaster Hubbard McKoy and was only a block off of Main and Bennett Streets. He charged a mite more than the government run post offices in Santa Cruz and San Jose and took his job very seriously. He even went so far as to deliver personal in-town correspondence if the addressee didn't come round in a timely fashion. Bates had yet to determine if this was due to McKoy's commitment to the post or a slightly over-active sense of order and penchant for fastidiousness. He tended to suspect the latter.

There were two carefully worded letters that weighed heavily in his pocket and on his mind, made more urgent by the affection in her kiss and the permission it granted his heart. If anything her demonstration gave his communications more meaning. He blushed not wanting to think too directly on it lest he give away the unseemly nature of his thoughts to the local postmaster. His mind instead ushered forth Minnerva Ballard's words; something she had said when she found out he wanted to do something nice for Anna.

_She deserves to be looked after a-piece, and in my reckoning there ain't a body who'd be less likely to ask it._

He sat in the saddle in front of the post office. He wasn't particularly worried over the letter to his mother. She would think what she would, but he felt that she knew how different a man he now was. How changed he was from his troubled days after the war. He hoped she would be able to feel how much Anna was not Vera. Still he opened the letter and read it again. It was especially sentimental, but he allowed himself to be a bit overly sentimental in his communications with Margaret Bates.

_Dear Mother,_

_(You know in my heart that it is always Dear Mama, but alas, boys do grow into men whose pride is oft wont to get in the way of their softness.)_

_I hope that this correspondence finds you well and in good cheer, as that is the state I find myself as I write this letter. I have come to enjoy my time in the American West. His Lordship continues to linger on the westernmost coast, still in the Santa Cruz Mo__untains, working in the shadows of the unfathomably large conifers I wrote to you about._

_I will admit, without hesitancy, that I continue to miss you dearly. As the summer and the season approaches, I long for our shared time together. I have grown to look forward to summer evenings in London; to being regaled with tales of the comings and goings of the neighborhood and the minutiae of your day. As always, I long for your cooking and will be requesting a feast when I come back to you - though please, do not read imminent return into my words. His Lordship seems content to stay here for some time. I must admit the climate is temperate and pleasant, the environs are picturesque as any I have seen, and as I mentioned in previous letters, I have made some friends and am well looked-after. A few very close friends indeed. You'll remember Elijah Cooper, and his dear wife Norah-Jane who keeps me terribly well-fed. He is an Irishman through and through, though he was born here. He finds me odd jobs to do, has taught me how to supervise the staging of the tree falls and manage the logistical concerns of the teams turning the felled tree into manageable chunks. He says I have a good mind for the strategy required, though I am not so sure some days. It is dull to write about but interesting to see. It is because of Coop that I feel useful and as though I somewhat belong in the grand scheme of things here._

_There are a small handful of men at the installation with whom I enjoy playing cards - nothing outlandish mind - penny pots only of course, and I've been minding my whiskey, too. They are good men who tell fine stories, and have seen much. Several have served this country during the War Between the States. We have had similar experiences with life after the military, and not quite feeling we belonged anywhere anymore. It sounds maudlin, but really, it is a great comfort hearing their stories, and occasionally sharing mine._

_You will ask on my other friend now I suppose. I have wondered for a time what to write or whether I should mention her at all. But I find I have grown so fond of her that not telling you of her would seem false and I have never wished to be false with you._

_After Vera, I know how what I am about to write sounds, that it will seem as though I have once again taken leave of my senses. Perhaps I have, but truly, I think not. I am a different man – or so I hope – and I am at a very different time in my life, with a more honed sense for seeing people as they truly are._

_It is with this in mind that I hope you will not fret too terribly when I tell you that I have met a lovely woman, Mother. She is kind of spirit, with a generous nature, and is selflessly protective of those in her charge. In this protectiveness she reminds me of you; in her fierceness as well. I find her to be capable, highly intelligent, possessing of a ready wit, that lacks the barbed cruelty which as you know I have had the misfortune to grow accustomed. She has led a difficult life. Much of which she refuses to share, and the more I know her, the more I realize that she does not tell me that which she thinks will illicit my pity or that which would paint her the victim. She is a proud woman, as proud as I am, in her way. There are times when her gaze goes distant, like mine when I am remembering the war, what I saw, what I was ordered to do. She lost her family and her people when she was barely more than a girl, with a younger sister to look after and no one to help her. You know full well what sorts of opportunities avail themselves to young women in this sort of situation, and can guess the path her life has taken._

_(I know you would never make any assumptions about our interactions, yet I must still reassure you that I met her quite innocently and have not, nor would, take advantage of the nature of her profession. Our association has been completely and entirely respectable.)_

_Her name is Anna – Anna May Smith to be precise – and it must be noted she has actively discouraged me; encouraging me to instead be sensible. She is a Yorkshire girl, grown up in Pickering and Easingwold, before she followed her mother to the States and her luck turned. She is acutely aware of her position in the world and how ill suited it makes her to legitimate relationships, to marriage, or even a close friendship with someone of my status. I know full well the seeming impossibility of it all, the inappropriateness. Still, she haunts my thoughts with her strength and kind-heartedness. When I am with her, when we talk about our lives she makes me feel so alive; like I am more than the sum of my parts. It is a new sensation for me and not one I experienced while I was married. If she simply did not return my affections it would be an uncomplicated matter of reigning in my emotions. I should welcome that. But her friendship (and she offers that with such unreserved joy,) is laced through with something nameless and deep, that I feel acutely even through her attempts to turn my interest away._

_I love her, Mother. I am not sorry to say it. I love her and cannot even bring myself to wish I didn't. Instead I wish the world was different. I will tell you the same thing I have told her. She is more than her profession. So very much more, and were you to come to know her, you would see this. She is a source of such joy to me; I respect and admire her so profoundly I cannot find the words to properly express it. Vera and I fed so cruelly and bitterly off of one another. But with Miss Smith, I feel more fully myself than I have in years. It is a lovely and rare occasion to find a person who encourages one to see the best in themselves and to be their best self. I know this is what Miss Smith has done for me, and I can only hope I do the same for her._

_I know my missteps with Vera were a source of much unrest between you and I and I suspect this letter will leave you trepidatious and concerned, but rest assured mother, I have and will continue to tread carefully and have done my very best to learn from my foolish and bullheaded mistakes. I have gone so far as to secure His Lordship's permission to court her. And I suppose I am writing this to ask your blessing despite how it sounds, as I dearly wish it. For I intend to make Miss Smith my wife if she will have me, and if she is to become my wife and eventually return with me, she will need a feminine ally to aide in her journey to propriety._

_Please let me know how I can assuage your fears and concerns about this revelation. I hope that despite everything I have your blessing. I do so wish for it._

_As Ever,_

_Your Loving Son,_

_Johnny_

He folded it and returned it to its envelope. Felt unburdened; made clean by the telling.

He needed to buy some sealing wax, inquired when he went inside. They were sold out, with a box due in two days. In the meantime Postmaster McKoy was agreeable to oblige his need and sealed both letters while he watched. Though he raised an eyebrow at the vague address on the one.

"No guarantees on letters that aren't fully and properly addressed."

Bates cleared his throat and eyed the names written in his careful script with a slightly guilty conscience. _Charles and Virginia X, relatives to Mrs. Joanna Smith and Miss Anna May Smith._ The only other real information he was able to include was Easingwold, Yorkshire.

"It is the closest thing to an address that I have. Please send it. My hope is that because it is a small town their given names will be recognized."

He couldn't reread _that_ letter. Couldn't think about it too closely. It was a violation of trust and confidence the likes of which could destroy everything he was working so carefully to build, even though it was sown with the best of intentions. It was perhaps unforgivable. Perhaps or perhaps not.

He couldn't exactly understand why he needed to write to them. To her family. Part of him knew what it was like to wonder. He had had chums stop writing and never start again, people he had cared for that slipped away. From what she had told him, he knew that they loved her. And they didn't know if she or her mother and sister were alive or dead. He would want to know if his mother ... how she fared. He imagined it would be a shock, hearing they had lost two, no, three out of four family members. He had been purposely vague, to leave room for Anna to fabricate a story should she wish it. Part of him needed her to know she still had kin who loved her. He knew there were many people who would turn their back on relations who had stained the family honor, but he couldn't imagine having this lovely young woman as a niece or cousin and not wanting to help her through her troubles, no matter what those troubles were. As much as he knew he shouldn't meddle, he couldn't see through to not giving them the chance to do the decent thing and stand by Anna, regardless of what she had been forced by circumstance to become. He reasoned that it was her choice to tell them what exactly that was, or not. He had provided them with his return address and fully intended on withholding knowledge of their response from her if it was unkind or if they held grudges against her or her mother. Families were strange and complicated beasts, of this he was not ignorant. He would burn any such letter and never speak of it. He felt thoroughly conflicted and a sense of solid determination as he paid the postage and the extra penny to have both letters sealed.

John Bates was not one for prayer. He was fairly sure he did not believe in any gods. But as he walked Pharaoh away from McKoy's Post Office he prayed that both letters would find their way - with haste - to their respective recipients, and both would be met with love. He took a deep breath, continued to pray that he was doing the right thing and clicked his tongue, nudging the tall horse along towards Queen of Hearts.

* * *

><p>"What're you frowning over, Enoch?" Annie asked, sheet over her arm, standing in only her chemise and bloomers amidst a dozen tin bathtubs. She scratching at a bothersome mosquito bite on her collar bone.<p>

"Cunt's being a twat again," came the spindly man's reply. Enoch Walker was nearly a head taller than Annie and always seemed to be fucking up or complaining or both. He had curly brown hair that usually looked messy, more so now that is was threaded with grey, but his soup-strainer was always kept combed, trimmed, and neatly waxed.

"What for now?" She was not quite sure why Vi hadn't thrown Enoch out on his ear a long time ago. He was liable to burn the damn place down, careless as he was, and he took more than his share of liberties with the bar and the girls.

"Fucking Cunt wrote me up for leaving an open fire unattended too close to the clothesline." He didn't sound surprised or even terribly upset.

"Again? Enoch, you have that fire going out in front and he walks right past it everyday; you should fucking know better."

"It was only for a minute and I was right there."

"Obviously not as right there as you imagined if Kant gave you a citation. Vi's gonna be pissed."

"Not so pissed. Means you-know-who'll be over here soon and lingering more'n usual."

"Don't let her hear you say it." Annie lowered her voice, glancing at the door that separated the ground floor of the garden from the bath house as if the mention of it would bring Vi flying from the rafters. "But don't leave it out of the telling to Séamus when you report in to him neither - that way he can relay it to Vi. Soften the blow, like. You got a tub ready I might use?"

"Seven is still warm, only used by Dawn and she leaves a clean tub. Not like you. I'll top it off with a kettle of fresh-boiled." He lowered his voice, leaned closer to her and rubbed his belly. "Pay you a quarter to leave the curtain open."

She rolled her eyes at him; the belly-rub and the offer of twenty-five cents were all part of his ritual. "Fifty cents is the deal, Enoch. And it'll be quick, so don't go groaning when I get out before you're done juggling your jewels."

"Fifty cents," he agreed, smiling, pushing the coins around his palm, counting out the change. "But leave the curtain open the whole time."

She sighed, held her tongue and opened her hand to take his money. She tucked it into a pocket she'd sewn into her bloomers (Poorly. It had been ages ago and a hurried job at that.) before she unbuttoned them and slid them off. She turned around a bit to give Enoch something of a show but otherwise ignored him; pulled the curtain closed enough to maintain some privacy and still afford the man his purchased view. It was mildly annoying, but otherwise harmless and she appreciated the easy money. Every extra bit helped. Especially now.

She needed to count how much she had in her tin up at Miss Minnie's. She had lost track over the years, not of what she added but of what Miss Minnie put in, because she didn't always tell her what she would pay her; just that she would. Annie trusted the woman; if anything, Miss Minnie was adding more than she should. It didn't change the fact that she needed to know where she stood. She frowned to herself and tried to ignore Enoch's movements and noises while she quickly soaped and rinsed her body. Even from her rough calculations, she knew she was close. Close to affording to buy back her freedom. She sighed. As if it would be as easy as all that, as if Vi would let her go without a fight. She needed to have a plan. She needed to figure out some sort of leverage. She needed to talk to Miss Minnie. But for now her nipples tightened against the breeze that blew through the bath house, and she let her thoughts wander back to the long-legged valet. She was slick; the lingering memory of his pulse, his nearness, the rasp of his voice made her very aware of just how her body responded to him. She swallowed her instincts, tried to tamp down her emotions. He had deserved her honesty. Somehow she needed to find a way to walk this line; to be true to what they were both feeling while simultaneously dissuading him from forsaking the entirety of his life on her. He deserved so much more and she couldn't abide the thought of him returning to England and pining for her. He should have a doting wife, with dimples on her elbows and rosy cheeks, who would plot and conspire with his mother to cook him his favorite stews and pies. Someone sweet and respectable, who would mend his clothes and knit him blankets, walk with him to church and bear him sparkling-eyed, chubby-cheeked children. Surely there were women back in Yorkshire far better suited to his needs and his status.

It didn't mean they couldn't share a kiss and a cuddle here and there while his employer kept him in the San Lorenzo Valley. As if left to her own devices she could keep it limited to a kiss and a cuddle. She couldn't let that happen, he deserved more than what it might bring him. She tried to justify her desire for him and all the while tried to dissuade herself from wanting him and failed miserably at both. It was enough to turn a person cross-eyed, she mused, shaking her head. Her thoughts fell on how shamelessly she had kissed him earlier and again she needed to wash the arousal from between her legs. She wasn't sorry. She would be later; of that much she was sure. But for now she shivered thinking of how deeply she felt those kisses, of how sweetly and enthusiastically he had responded. She hadn't known it could feel like that. Was shocked, really, after how much she had hated suffering through so many unwanted kisses. She had despised that (almost) most of all during her time at the other place. It was far easier to pretend the things that happened below her shoulders weren't really happening to her. She'd had to protect herself somehow, and so she had learned to retreat into her own mind. She wasn't used to the desire to feel things so completely, nor had she ever had the urge to try to commit every detail of a moment to memory. With Mr. Bates, though. With him she wanted to savor everything and remember it always.

Enoch's rhythmic wrist movements pulled her out of her private musings. She sighed at the talent she had for separating things out in her mind, ignoring the unsavory and focusing on that which gave her pleasure or comfort. She was weary of all of it. Seemed that all she ever did was sigh and shake her head and keep one foot lain before the other as she moved to the next thing. Mr. Bates was springtime and greening; a beacon of neatly combed, verdant hope in a world of sweat, outhouses, and muck (muck that would very soon dry to a pervasive dust); it was a foolish and likely futile hope that she barely let herself acknowledge.

She finish scrubbing her feet and surveyed the water. Enoch was right; she left the tub just as filthy as any jack if not more, given the amount of work in the garden she had accomplished on any given day. He gave a satisfied grunt just as she stood to get out. She hurriedly wrapped herself up in the spare sheet she used for her towel, nodded at him when he thanked her and climbed the staircase that led to the door to the Garden's upstairs' corridor. It was early enough that there weren't many jacks or merchants yet about. (Those not up and working were sleeping off their aches, pains, and - for a goodly number - their hangovers.) Even still, she didn't have her dressing gown; Jessamine was borrowing it. Better to quietly skirt the upstairs railing than waltz across the entirety of the barroom floor wrapped in an old, stained bed-sheet or try to struggle with damp underclothes with Enoch Walker gawking at her, harmless though he might be. She made good money off of him, even if sometimes she went when Fern or Séamus or Dawn were minding the stalls during off hours to give Enoch a break. It was nice to bathe in peace and privacy.

She valued avoiding attention where and whenever she could, enjoyed going unnoticed; particularly after Vi discovered her singing voice and started standing her on the bar three times a night for everyone to gawp at and nourish their lewd thoughts. She had cultivated a knack for disappearing when the situation called for it, had enjoyed creeping about as a girl; surprising her parents or her aunt and uncle. It was a valuable skill to slip in and out of a room unnoticed, to hold perfectly still in the shadows or a corner and remain unseen. It was how she learned many of the Garden's secrets, it was how she had got out of Fellers' place. She had gone dead still against the wall behind the door and while Terrence was cursing and rooting around the bedding for her, she slipped out.

It had been about this time of the morning, not yet nine, for Terrance had mentioned he got in trouble if he didn't have everyone fed by nine. He had been bringing her whatever slop they were calling breakfast that day. He had moved towards the bed asking her why she wasn't up yet. She had pulled straw out of her mattress and made a roughly person-shaped bundle on the bed with her blanket. It was the one time in her stay there that she had been grateful it was a windowless room. The place had been blessedly empty and she made her footfalls as silent as she could as she hurried down two corridors she had never seen before. There was only one way to turn at the first one, thank god, and the second one was close enough to windows and a door that she could see natural light. There was a pink, round, bald man with several days worth of stubble growing from the folds of his throat, up to just below his eye sockets snoring in a chair near the door. She snatched the gun from his holster, which was slung around the back of the chair and was out the door before she heard Terrance shouting. Then for the first time in nearly two years, blinding daylight and blessed fresh air. And her bare feet under her running as fast as she could make them go, even before her eyes adjusted. She heard the shouts behind her, remembered passing buildings, running between them. Annie could run fast. Faster than most men if she needed to. And she wasn't wearing any skirts to tangle in her legs, just bloomers and her shift. She ran and ran and then she disappeared again. This time into the bushes. Made her breath slow and quiet though her lungs burned and her eyes watered. She knew if they found her, they would kill her, but not until after making an example of her, after making her wish she was dead for hours on end. She stared at poison oak and blackberry brambles, grown thick and thatched through with hazel bushes.

She hadn't known their names then, but you tend to remember the look of things that save your sorry hide (Miss Minnie had taught them to her not so long after) and she stared at the green undersides of those leaves until past dark when the welts from the poison oak had grown large, swollen and painful with pus. She shivered and wretched and hurt until she ate the last bit of opium she had squirreled away, tied tightly in a corner of her shift. Then she ran again; although in the dark she immediately stumbled and despite slowing herself up, and trying to pick her way as silently and quietly as she could, she lost count of the times she barked her shins, or stubbed her toes. She was forever snagging herself painfully on brambles. She fumbled the gun into the bushes early on, cursed the loss of it's empowering weight and frightening coldness. She remembered being grateful that her feet went burning numb. She kept to the river, but so did they, from time to time she would hear them and hide again. Scratching broke open the blistered welts. Her legs throbbed. She wondered if she would ever know what her body felt like when it was whole and healthy again. She cried miserably, silently, when at day break she realized she had only made it as far as Felton. Barely three miles. And in rags like gutter trash. Then one of A.G.'s men spotted her and she had run to the middle of the thoroughfare shrieking and screaming for help. The muck sucked at her feet, slowed her up, enough for one of them to clamp down on her elbow and spin her around. She tightened her body into an instinctual ball against a blow that never landed, found herself cringing instead as Vi's voice had boomed out over the muck that had sucked at her ankles.

She pulled on her blue dress in the privacy of Dawn and Fern's bedroom and admired the way it lay better against the curve of her torso, as Vi's words from that morning over seven years ago echoed through her mind.

"Three brawny boys such as yourself can't handle that slip of a thing between the lot of you without her screaming like a stuck pig?" As she stalked closer she lowered her voice so that only the group of them could hear her words, her tone doing nothing to belie its blatant threat. "You keep on at that ruckus and respectable folks might come noticing. Might draw attention where a body don't want it. You're Fellers' boys? Tell A.G. that Vi sends her love and will make him an offer on his runner. Depending on how kindly he is to me I may or may not tell him just how severely y'all botched up the retrieval of his property. What the hell good is she to anyone all strung out, blistered and bleeding? Not many specialists looking for that, I'd warrant."

"You'd be surprised," one sneered. Sounded like Terrance.

Annie wasn't looking, was doing her best to hold very still, but the venom in Vi's voice raised the hair on her arms. "You will turn the fuck around and leave. She's mine now. I'll pay him more than she's worth. Your boss and I need this sort of spectacle like we need a hole in our respective heads."

She had waited, struck mute, as the iron hand on her elbow suddenly let go. In her time whoring she had heard many women stand their ground with men, harass and heckle them even, but she hadn't heard many talk to a man that way. In a way that presumed and demanded respect and acknowledgement, in a way that brooked not argument. She knew they would've beaten her and done God-knows what-all else; she had stopped wondering a long time before how many new and different ways there were to make a woman's body hurt. Yet here was a woman who, with the authority of her voice alone, had sent them as would have surely killed Annie back from whence they came.

She remembered finding the mud-spattered hem of Vi's dress out of the corner of her eye. It was a dark emerald green. She let her gaze travel up its length and took in Vi's voluptuous form. She had been perhaps a stone or two lighter, but had always been all curves and smolder. Full alabaster breasts spilled over the top of an intricately beaded bodice. The beads had looked like proper jewels to Annie, but of course it was only colored and cut glass and painted paste. Vi's face was trimmer, but still square, her narrow eyes squinting in the brightness of the morning light. She looked beautiful but tired, like she had been up all night, despite a painted face that gave her a mysterious allure. (Later, Annie realized that she _had_ been up all night, tending bar, working the girls and the room and then cleaning up after a boisterous Friday.) Vi pursed thin lips, raised an eyebrow and sighed at her. Her dark hair was thickly coiled into a knot at the back of her head and struck through with a fascinator of iridescent black and emerald green feathers.

"Come on then," was all Vi said, after A.G.'s men had walked out of sight.

She remembered following Vi like a duckling, into the dim daylight streaming through the open windows of a saloon, with beautiful women lining the bar, sitting on more than one lumberjacks' lap. Remembered how it all fell silent and every head turned, every gaze bored into her. She remembered the hot red sense of humiliation that sank into her bones. She made it inside before she began to register just how much her feet hurt. She had known enough to know that between that and her oozing, scraped, and scratched skin she would be in agony when she finally felt all her aches.

She made it to the doorway between the Garden and the adjoining bath-house before nausea washed over her and she began to shiver uncontrollably. Fern had told her years later, on a cold early-spring night when they had sat near each other whispering secrets after they'd both imbibed more than their rightful portion, that she'd puked into the first tub they loaded her into and had to be held upright in the next because she couldn't stay conscious. Fern and Dawn had both gotten poison oak from helping to clean her up that day. She wished she would have known, so that she could have thanked them properly. She had tried to talk to them about it since, but they both waved her off. It bothered her; recalling all the sordid details and forgetting the one part of it that she wanted to remember - her first warm bath, finally getting clean, and the rough kindness of the hands that ushered her forth into this new world. Coming to the Garden was like waking up for the first time in a long time. Not unlike how she felt when she was with Mr. Bates.

She closed her eyes. She would always owe Vi a debt. She would. But that didn't mean she should forever be the woman's thrall. She would never not be grateful, but she was tired of being a pet and a plaything. She finished combing out the damp tangles in the ends of her hair and tightly plaited it. She wrapped it about her head as she had seen some of the more respected women in the camp begin to wear theirs and pinned her good hat. A glance at the looking glass and a flush of desire motivated her to repin the hat at an angle, that she might tip her head to the side to kiss him again. She took her gloves from their hiding place and tucked them up her sleeves. She would put them on after the Garden was out of sight. Checking the clock, she frowned; it had taken longer than she had planned and he would be wondering what was keeping her.

* * *

><p>Minnerva J. Ballard's bed was perpetually empty - not that she particularly minded. It was one of the ways she kept the respect of the men and women she tended. She was very clear about the maternal nature of her role as fixer of wayward bodies and part-time apothecary. She was happy to be the mother, the aunt who tended colds and wounds, who made soup or preserves or puddings, but she was clear that she sold her services, not herself and while the lean-tos were always open for souls who needed them, she sure as shit wasn't running a brothel. Her family's property was for working and farming, sleeping, eating and even celebrating, but not whoring. She didn't let people into her bedroom, as a hard and fast rule. Kept it locked and the key on her person. So when she woke pressed to skin the shade of milk in coffee, with a pleasantly warm weight over her thigh and chest, it took her a confused moment to gather her bearings.<p>

And then her companion made a sleepy noise and stretched and the past thirty-six hours settled around her like the warmest and most welcome of blankets. She smiled wickedly at the dull ache between her legs. It occurred to her that it was Friday and she was missing her window of time to pull the cart into the southern reaches of Milltown. She had wanted to be back up before Annie and her gentleman were done with their ride and picnic. She hadn't woken to harvest the greens early enough, still had to tend the animals. She squinted at the brightness in the sky and realized how late it was.

"Fuck me! The animals!" Minnerva blurted. She struggled to push herself unceremoniously out of the bed and was hindered at every move by her chuckling companion.

"Listen to the mouth on you." An arm looped around her waist. "I leave you to your own devices for a few years and you start to swear like a sailor." Teeth nipped at her ear. "Where you off to?"

Minnerva flopped out onto the floor and then about on one foot, scrambling to pull on her bloomers. She chuffed and threw a teasing look over her shoulder.

"I swear like a lumberjack. The sailors are all down in Santa Cruz," she stated matter-of-factly, then danced away from the edge of the bed and reaching hands. "I've got to feed the goddamn animals. The calf will have bawled itself sick and that bitch nag will be sour as lemonade with no sugar. I can't believe I slept that late."

He stretched and caught her wrist, smiling. Pulled her back to him. "I can. Calm down, woman. I woke up before dawn and snuck out the way you showed me. They are fed and watered one and all. Even the chickens. Crept back in before the sun was up. Your uncle and father were ingenious the way they worked out that passageway and door."

She looked at him for a time, happy. "Well, then. For the sake of those trying little and not-so-little shits, I thank you."

She knelt next to him and beamed. Fuck Milltown. Iana was alive and well, strong and so very beautiful. It surprised her how easy it was to think of him as a man. Strange, because she didn't take well to change, still thought of Eunice as Petunia. It took purposefulness to think and say Ian instead of Iana, but not he instead of she. Even as the young woman she knew, Iana had given off a very masculine air. To see her - him - like this; the postures and confidence, strength that didn't seem out of place, it felt easy, right. He made sense. That thought made her smile as much as she knew it should make her worry. Today she would not worry. She settled against his chest and sighed happily as they fit their bodies back together in the warmth of eiderdown. She listened to the steady rhythm of his heart and let her mind wander as his breathing grew even and unencumbered and he dozed in the mid-morning light.

She had known his voice. Lower and deeper though it was. Had harnessed the fucking nag to her cart like she always did Wednesday mornings. Silas had helped her build it ages ago and together they painted it yellow with blue trim. Over the months and years, as the fancy took her, she added images of the vines, roots, leaves, and flowers that she used in her remedies, taking care to paint them slowly and with great detail. She had been tidying after a wave of jacks had wandered through and bought up a solid quantity of her wares. That Wednesday she was selling the last of her spring cleansing tea and candles from the big batch she had made in February when Clementine Nash fell ill and her husband had paid with honey and pounds of beeswax. She had known Iana's, known Ian's voice like she knew her own and it had made her feel like she was falling.

"I've a powerful ache in my shoulder, Ma'am. Word 'round here is you the person to talk to."

Minnerva had taken a steadying breath smoothed her apron, and proceeded as she would with any lumberman or limekiln worker. Even though the sound of that voice made her heart pound in her chest.

"Muscle or bone, I wonder?" She glanced up at an angular freckled face, took in the pale gold-green eyes and forced herself to keep speaking. "Exam fifty cents, most medicines three for a dollar."

She prayed silently for her hands to keep her secrets as she fussed over the table's wares, consolidating things in places where holes had opened during the last few sales.

"Catch is, Ma'am, I ain't possessed of regular currency, seeing as I'm new to this camp and my last coin is tied up as it is, boarding and feeding my horse. But I've a strong back, one good shoulder and a quick a mind as any, if you've odd jobs as need doing."

Minna put her knuckles to her hips and eyed her old friend as if deciding. It was a resolutely good choice; her hands wouldn't shake if they were on her hips.

"This boy bothering you, Miss Minnie?" asked a heavyset Italian jack, with a thick pelt of hair on his head and neck. He ambled up slow, standing at his full height of five feet and two or three inches.

"Ponzo, I'm old enough to have whelped you, you fat little bacciagalupe! I think I can damn well take care of my own rickety ass, seeing as I've had it this long." Her smirk and cocked eyebrow betrayed the good humor in her words, the appreciation of his protectiveness and concern. She rolled her eyes and smiled when she bade him to, "Get!"

Ponzo waved her off. He mumbled something about foolish women, smiling to himself before crooning a few bars of an Italian love song she didn't know the name of and shambled away in a distinctly saloon-bound direction. (Which was true of most amblers as the road was neatly lined with them.)

"You read?" Minna asked, knowing the answer, but wanting to sound as she normally did when she took someone on to work for trade. Her voice was even, or as even as she could force it.

"Very well, Ma'am," Iana had given a tight, controlled nod. Ian. She'd supposed he must call himself Ian. Minnerva remembered the story Iana had told her on one of their walks through Boston together, about how her mother wanted a boy and had decided on the name Ian when she was pregnant (by the hard, red-headed plantation manager who had raped her). She had named her daughter Iana and never let the girl forget where she came from or what she lacked, then criticized her for not being feminine enough. Now Iana was stood there, holding her face and body hard and angular. Had Minnerva not known, she would not have seen any hint of femininity in the person before her. Nor the voice. Iana's voice had been naturally deeper and a bit husky. The voice was the same, only drawled in a lower register, the natural gravel played up a touch.

"I write, too," he added.

She pinched her smile tight, tried to funnel the expression into a measuring look. "Good with fine work? Sorting? Labeling? Figures?"

Truly it was a wonder she hadn't swooned, with as hard and loud as her heart was beating. Good thing she tended toward looser corset stays. Half of her was eleven years and a continent away, in the basements of the medical college in Boston, studying into the wee hours, taking inappropriately late walks. She had met Iana on one of them, rather, Iana had saved her ass on one of them. She had chased off a man whose intentions were decidedly uncouth, with a deep shout and a thrown brick. She had been a gangling, mannish-looking girl, broad of face and hard featured. ("Mama always said I got her pa's mouth and nose, and my father's hair and everything else in between.") She had burning red curls, sun bleached orange and yellow at the ends. Minnerva hadn't fully seen until they finally spent one of Minnerva's afternoons off in the park.

"Yes'm."

"And what, pray tell, is your name?"

"Ian, ma'am."

"Well then, Ian, you've got yourself a job. I am just about to make several batches of salve, you can help with that and if your shoulder isn't too poorly there is always work around the gardens and barn. There are lean-tos to sleep in and shelter for your horse. I'll tend your shoulder, feed you and board your horse in exchange for your help harvesting, measuring, processing and labeling a few crops of my herbs, and odds and ends about the house and property while your shoulder mends. Not much to the lean-tos, but they are warm enough and dry besides and the beds are off of the ground. The straw ticking is fresh this fall. And I've plenty of blankets. Fair?"

"Yes'm. More'n fair. Thank you." Iana, Ian smiled, and ducked her head. His head. Minna bit her lip and pretended to size her friend's familiar form up. If she wasn't having an elaborate hallucination, she would have to get things straight in her mind so she didn't say something stupid and put the lovely soul before her at risk. This particular line was a dangerous one to walk for any woman, and she had known more than one who sought freedom in a pair of pants, short hair and tightly bound breasts, but for a mulatto ex-slave... She closed her mind off to horrible possibilities.

No one nearby seemed to pay any mind to them at all. She had done the same for half the men in camp and most respected her (even if just grudgingly) for it.

"Go get your horse from the livery and bring it up to my place. You at Johnston's? Then just follow Fall Creek up the mountain; he can point you to it. The third deer path on the right intersects the road in to my property. Follow that to your left. You'll see from there. I'll be in the main house. It is a convenient shortcut." A discreet shortcut. No one needed extra attention drawn to themselves, certainly not when they carried such a dangerous secret.

* * *

><p>Ian woke slowly from his mid morning nap. A low chuckle rang through him when he was fully conscious. They had stayed up until the wee hours of the morning lost in one another and he had lain awake after, watching her sleep in a state of near-painful disbelief, silent tears of joy streaming down his face. Even still, he hadn't expected to fall back to sleep after she woke.<p>

"Hmmm?"

Minn's questioning hum was a sound he remembered, a sound that took him back to Boston and the warmth she brought to the hopelessness his younger self had endured. He had loved her from nearly the first moment she had spoken to him, or the not-quite-girl he once was.

He smiled and lightly nipped the bit of flesh nearest his mouth. "I've been wanting to do that for over ten years."

"Which part exactly?" Minn asked with a wolf's grin. She squawked and rolled away from his playful pinch. A slight scuffle ensued, but just as quickly a truce was called when Ian proved to have longer limbs and outweighed Minnerva by a surprisingly significant amount and so the older woman resorted to tickling, which proved to be entirely too noisy an activity.

"It's late enough that skulkers will come looking for odd jobs and a meal, which means ears to hear. And you aren't the only boarder, love."

He remembered her question then and smiled. "You wanted to know which part." he murmured. "The part where I tell you I love you. And you smile. And we act like school-children."

"Not the part after?" She smirked.

"Well that too, but I never expected to get that far along, so I didn't let myself want."

"I did. Dirty old woman that I am."

"My favorite kind." They both broke into hushed laughter again, each pressing a hand over the other's mouth. Each then losing themselves in the distraction of soft sighs and searching, calloused hands.

Minn caught the edge of his jaw in her palm. "Do you remember ... after you ... after they hurt you and you came and found me...?"

Ian smiled and kissed her softly. "When I was at death's door and you put me back together again; hid me in the medical college basement and nursed my sorry, torn up tits and ass back to health? Yeah, I remember."

"How you ever made it that far in the shape you were in, that was a miracle true as any I've seen. You were so young, just a babe."

"I hadn't been young for years at that point Minnie-Mae, years and years," he intoned.

"I don't think there is anyone left alive other than you who calls me that. And, yeah. I know." He felt her smile fade. "There was a night, back then, after I was sure you would live but when I was still sleeping next to you because you couldn't move to get anything."

He frowned and nodded, went a bit stiff. He had taken more than one beating in his life, but thinking about that night still made him feel cold with fear. "It was wretched wasn't it?"

"Bad as anything I'd seen. It was a miracle you got to me and another miracle you pulled through that first night. But one of those nights, you thought I was asleep," she said softly, mapping out his face with her fingers, taking him in with her eyes. He imagined he must be doing the same, found himself particularly fond of the fine lines that framed her mouth and eyes. He knew that all in all he gave the appearance of a weather-worn young man. His face was smooth; that was the only real tell. At least he had a few darker whiskers at his chin and the corners of his mouth that he let grow. It helped, even if it made him look a bit like a boy trying too hard for his beard to grow in. Still he found himself surprisingly contented with the attention, with her gentle explorations.

"I'll never forget what you said." Minnerva refocused herself, her tone hushed and intimate. "That you wished you were a man, so that I would love you like you loved me."

"You heard me?" Ian went very still, could feel the throbbing hurts of the beating she had received at the hands of some wealthy boys with too much bourbon and too much bravado all those years ago. It hadn't hurt as much as the hopelessness that fueled that quiet, cowardly declaration in the still of night. It wasn't the reason Iana had reformed herself into Ian. But it was a truth.

"I should have said something." Minn spoke in a small voice. "I should have told you how much you meant to me. That I loved you as you were and that I'd love you in any incarnation I found you. But you were still so hurt and so young. You weren't more than what, nineteen? And I was already an old woman at thirty-two. What sort of life could I have offered you? Following me around to where-ever my father sent me? Pretending to be my hired help? On top of that I was nursing you back from a shameful cruelty. I didn't want you to confuse your appreciation with love. It felt... Wrong somehow ... like I hadn't the right to lead you the wrong way just because I was taken with you. You had so much in your life you were struggling with. There were so many other reasons that sounded strange and cowardly even then as I said them to myself. In my whole life, I've never regretted anything as much as I regretted holding my tongue that night."

Ian kissed the lines at Minn's eyes, then the ones on either side of her mouth. She turned her head to catch his lips and he smiled when her whispered apologies caught in her throat. Her emotion took him by surprise. Years of wondering, silent yearning and doubt fell away from him. He lingered, letting the kiss deepen and grow and then quiet again. They chuckled softly, cares washed away by the gentle rain of their tears. He snugged her to him when they stopped and she rested her head on his bound chest. He had wrapped the fabric back around himself when he went out to tend the livestock, and hadn't bothered to remove it again. (It had been a bit of a struggle to get him out of his bindings the night before; a silent one of looks and shaken heads, reassuring angles of jaws and soft questioning touches and finally a fierce kiss. He had sat stiffly while she had slowly unwound the stained cotton strips.) Wednesday night he could barely stand to be near her, he wanted her so badly. He had awkwardly excused himself to tend his horse, Artie, and had hidden away in the lean-to that was to be his. Last night he had shivered, worried and exposed while her kisses and touches reassured him and then made him come undone in ways he never had, not in any of his skins. Now they lay as easily together as if they had been doing it for their whole lives. He wondered how different his journey would have been to have felt this sense of belonging then. Then he sighed, because it did no good to second guess oneself; nothing could undo what was done.

"I wish you wouldn't have held your tongue," he whispered honestly. "But you've told me now."

"A lifetime too late," she loosed her own sigh, drawing long lines up and down Ian's arm with her fingertips.

"That ain't true," Ian whispered low. "It's not too late. We just had a chance to ripen is all."

Minn snorted and smirked. "Or in my case soften."

"I love you." Ian held tightly to her. "And I hate to shatter the illusion, but you were soft already, even then."

Minn buried her face in Ian's shoulder to mute her bray of laughter, held tighter to him as it subsided and went silent a moment before speaking again, "From the moment we met I thought you were the bravest, strongest person. I admired you so." He could feel her smile against his skin. "I always thought you were a handsome young woman, little did I know what a beautiful man you would grow into."

Ian shook his head and blinked back more tears. He felt as weightless and free as he could ever remember feeling at that moment. The welcome he had received Wednesday afternoon was the only other time that came close.

He had ridden up, after arguing with the proprietor of the livery, Jim Johnston, a strange, quietly angry man, who communed far more easily with the animals he boarded than their owners. Johnston had been an ass and hadn't wanted to refund the money he had been given to board the animal for several weeks. In the end he had given up the fight and just taken his horse. He would return and argue his case further at a later date. He had passed a broad, clean shaven man astride a paint horse that looked almost too small for him, he had been a bit surprised when the man had greeted him respectfully in passing. A mulatto man garnered a touch more respect than a mulatto woman, which was to say little to none when it came to proper whites. But this man met his eye and wished him a good afternoon; had even touched the brim of his hat.

Ian's heart pounded loudly in his ears. Had been since he saw her at her cart and walked up to her earlier in the day. She looked exactly the same. Lines a bit deeper. Hair woven through with some grey. If anything she looked fiercer, more formidable.

She was inside. Nearby woodsmoke tickled Ian's nostrils. He secured the barn doors and balanced on the sagging boards that led from the barn to the porch over a particularly moist low spot in the ground

"Leave your boots and socks on the porch; there's a brush for mud and shit if you need it on the left window sill." She called through the slightly open front door.

He had smelled the food cooking when he had ridden up, but it enveloped him when he stepped inside on narrow, bare feet. The house was small, a main room with what looked like empty cots propped against the walls to the left of the door and a kitchen with a large table and a good-sized cook stove to the right. Minnerva had its door open and was pushing around coals. A pot, a pan, and a kettle sat atop it. She moved the frying pan from the cook surface to the warmer.

"Sit," she ducked her head at the chair piled with furs to her left, pulled comfortably close to the stove.

"Wouldn't want to dirty your furs, Ma'am."

"Sit." She said it with an edge of firm finality. But when she turned a smile kept breaking through her stern facade. She carried and deposited a basin at Ian's feet, and poured some water from a pitcher into it. His felt his cheeks color as he remembered the ritual. It was a tenderness Minnie used to insist upon whenever Iana had visited her after a long night's walking around looking for tricks. He watched the older woman as she fetched the kettle and poured steaming water into an cup that held dried herbs. The fragrance of mint and rosemary filled the air. She swirled them and poured a touch more from the kettle into the basin, then she was up again, back turned, busying herself gathering more supplies. She returned with several flannel cloths, a small glass jar, and soap.

"Feet," she intoned through her smile. She dropped to her knees and began cuffing his Levi's.

"Minn," he began to protest.

"Hmmm," she hummed and smiled again, cutting him off. "You do remember my name then." The herbs had colored the water and she tipped the contents of the cup into the basin. She gave his calf a little swat. "Feet!" she ordered again gently, then nodded when he eased his aching feet into the blissfully warm water. "There, let them soak a bit. Been a few years, my dear-heart." She paused, and her breast rose and fell, as though she were swallowing a welling up of emotion. Her eyes stayed trained on the water when she whispered, "My sweet Iana."

Ian turned his head and looked out the northern window at a towhee hopping along a piece of paddock fencing. "I left her behind years ago."

Minn's hands pressed into his feet, rubbing knowingly under the warm rosemary and mint scented water. They drew sweet flames from his throat and cheeks down through to his trunk and legs and back again. He blinked and bit his lip.

"Something tells me you just changed things up a bit so that the world would treat you how you needed it too."

"You gave me the idea you know," he looked at her shyly.

"I remember." Minn raised her eyebrows. "You were solid and tall and miserable at the odd house-jobs you could get, when you could get them; it seemed a likely solution to pass for a man. You have the back for it."

"It kept me alive, served me well. I bought that horse cash-in-hand," he said with pride. "I learned several trades; I can run a mule team, or a mule train, I've driven stage, can shoe any horse and silversmith jewelry and trinkets."

"You never wrote." The rawness of her words caught him off guard. His gaze flicked to her eyes. It moved him that she had grieved Iana's absence, that he had been so dearly missed, though he had several old letters from her saying as much folded and tucked away.

"I know," he said, frowning, not knowing how to explain the tightness in his gut that kept him from writing.

She squeezed his feet and took a long deep breath. "You're here now," she said in a singsong sigh, while she worked up a lather between her palms. She smoothed it over the pale skin of the cracked and calloused soles of Ian's feet. "You have been sorely and utterly missed, my dear-heart." She poured clean water from the pitcher to rinse them clean. One by one she dried Ian's feet, resting them on the cloth over her knees when she was done, then rubbing them with whatever sort of magical concoction she had in the little glass jar. It smelled good, like the forest or a meadow. When she was satisfied, she rolled thick dark blue socks over his toes. "These were from the yarn Salmon Joe brought me last time he was in town. You stay long enough, you'll meet him. He's a character; got more drunk than usual that night and started shaking his iron at me. I had threatened to start calling him Tadpole Joe if he didn't fuck off, or a whore, his choice so long as he wasn't on my property."

He had smiled, she wasn't a mite changed in the ways that mattered. It had made him inordinately happy.

Minnerva washed and anointed his work-roughened hands the same way. (He had never been anointed - didn't have much time for church and a hard enough time navigating the rest of his life without adding busy-bodies and titty-sucking-do-gooders to the mix - but he imagined this was what it felt like; tender touches and a swelling sense of peace.) Then she laced her fingers through his and lowered her forehead to press against them. Only then did he dare let his eyes fall on her fully; on the thick coil of dark brown hair, threaded now with fine silver strands, on the smaller curls and strays that tickled her ears. He had no words to describe the sensations her nearness drew from him, no words for how it felt to see her finally, after so long, to be so welcomed. A single half-sob escaped the wild and willful back of his throat. He withdrew a hand to cover his mouth. But it soon strayed to rest between her shoulder blades, where a thumb might brush the dark whorl of silken hair at the back of her neck. He curled, let his own forehead press against his hand. Wondered if she would mind the stir and warmth of his breath across her neck's nape. Minnerva's shoulders shook a few times under his palm and she wrapped her arms tightly around the back of his calves. The fierceness with which she held onto him surprised Ian. They stayed like that, moved to silence, not wanting to break the spell of their comfortable nearness. Her only words were whispered shallowly, "I never thought I would see you again."

* * *

><p>AN: I almost didn't include the Minn/Ian portion. Apologies to fanfic purists who want no oc's. I hope it wasn't too much of a chore. To any trans folks reading this - if I have gotten stuff wrong, forgive me - my heart is in the right place. Feel free to educate me. Same goes to people of color: I will be using time period appropriate descriptors from this point on and would be happy to take your input and dialogue about it. I worry about offending folks, but at the same time, the n-word was a commonly used derogatory word at the time and I don't want to pretend horrible and widespread racism wasn't happening. I substituted the one place in the chapter I would have used it with "boy" because it felt like an appropriate level of disrespect, and of course I worry deeply about offending anyone. In all I am rather anxious about this chapter, even though it is dear to me. Input, feedback, and critiques are always welcome. Also. Last but not least Hubbard McKoy owned and ran the first private post office in Felton. I have no idea what he was like, but that was his real name.


	12. Cobbles

_Evening, Friday 19th of May 1882  
><em>

_I am a fool. Of this I am decidedly sure. And while she still professes the impossibility of our feelings, she has not entirely spurned my advances, has instead made some of her own._

_Each time I witness her smile, I am more delighted than I was the time previous. This morning she set my heart to unexperienced heights with her kiss. Even still, when I witnessed her briskly round the corner, walking with what appeared to be nervous determination towards me, my heart danced in my chest. Her gaze darted about while she walked. She is someone who takes in everything around her. I have noticed this about her - a wariness that is seemingly bone-deep. I shudder to think what she has survived to bring out this habit. But when she saw me, tucked as I was with His Lordship's horses, just beyond the line of shrubs and bushy green fir saplings, her face broke into a bright smile; a bright, broad smile, that rounded the apples of he__r cheeks most delightfully. And it seemed like all of my weariness lifted from my shoulders._

_She is so dear to me, this lovely spirit. So very dear._

* * *

><p>He had paid Caleb Leroy a nickel to make sure Isis was shining and clean and stood in the shelter of the scrub and low trees that grew around Fall creek behind the saloon. Caleb was a skinny nine year old orphan boy who lived at Johnston's livery, tended the horses and mules while Jim Johnston slept and did odd jobs for him while he was awake. Johnston was a bit of an ass, after perhaps spending too much time amongst animals who seemed to understand him a shade better than most people, but had taken a protective liking to the boy in the time Bates had been boarding the Earl's horses at his livery. It had been a strange and subtle thing to watch in the snatches the valet glimpsed; the two of them sidling up to each other, getting used to one another, working out a sort of cobbled-together family. When Bates started flipping the boy a coin here and there to pay special attention to the horses' hooves or tend other tasks that strained his bad ankle, Johnston suddenly began showing the man more consideration. He wasn't negligent before by any means, and he wasn't friendly after, just more likely to speak when spoken to or acknowledge Bates' presence whereas before he might not have.<p>

Caleb was at the arranged spot, smiling brightly through the dirt that smeared his face. He took pride in a job well done, and the horse was a gleaming picture of western perfection, tacked up and ready to ride.

Pharaoh nosed Isis in silent greeting. The two horses blew breath through soft nostrils, took in each other's travels and caught up with one another. John handed Caleb a small parcel of peppermint candies to thank him and the boy grinned and took off skipping through the trees when he was far enough away not to spook the horses.

* * *

><p>Her smile when she caught sight of him made his chest hurt in a very real way. How the sight of his sorry self could brighten her eyes and warm her face, he would never know.<p>

"I wasn't sure you would come."

She rolled her eyes and smirked. "I _said_ I would, didn't I? Oh ye of little faith."

He found himself grinning.

"Shall we?" he asked, motioning to the horses.

To his surprise she didn't look nearly as confident as she had been riding double or leading Isis. She looked at the horses and frowned.

"You are a brave man putting me on a horse. It's been years since I've ridden," she said doubtfully. "Honestly, I've never even ridden with a saddle before. Duchess was our cart horse, and I only ever clambered onto her to bring her in from the pasture. I did so love it, but it wasn't proper experience. I wasn't allowed near my uncle's draught horses until I proved myself attentive and fast enough to get out of their way, and even then only when my uncle was with them. They liked to work and pulled hard and fast, sometimes before he was ready for them. I've no idea what to do with twin reins."

The crease in her forehead deepened and she shifted her feet.

"Well then, you'll be in good company. Both the Earl and I found ourselves tasked with relearning how to ride in the western style. Really the horses are more effort than they are worth; the Earl rarely goes anywhere he doesn't walk or travel to via rail, and is usually loathe to ride for long because of..." he stopped himself abruptly. Realizing how perilously close he came to discussing the peer's pyles, he instead settled on stating, "Because he tends towards soreness."

"Well I can't say I blame him." She glanced over at him. "I really would love to get to know her better, but perhaps you should ride Isis for now?"

"We'll go slow. I can't post properly with my ankle playing up anyway." He smiled. "Pharaoh's a sweet old chap. Wherever Isis leads, so he follows. But she is fond of you and a jealous beast at that. Perhaps you could try her out in one of Miss Minnie's fields."

Her face brightened and she nodded. "Sounds agreeable to me. Speaking of, what are you two plotting?" she asked with a half-smile and a raised eyebrow. Her lips quirked upwards.

"Me and Isis? I haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about," he said warmly, doing little to still his tight lipped smile. He watched her trepidation when she stood with him next to Pharaoh. He reached out to her and his whole body seemed to hum when she placed her hand in his without hesitation. He ducked his head and caught her gaze.

"Come on now, you mustn't fret. I wouldn't offer if I didn't think you capable of it. You have my word; he'll do the work for you."

She smiled and glanced downward. "You seem determined to hold me in unreasonably high esteem, Mr. Bates."

"I cannot help it Miss Smith, if you deserve to be held in high esteem," he said cheerfully. He gave her hand what he hoped was an encouraging squeeze. "Now then, say hello, and we'll see you aboard."

She smiled at that and obliged, whispering with and gently fussing over both of the horses before turning her full attention back to Pharaoh. John was not surprised to see the gelding respond just as agreeably to Anna as Isis had a few weeks prior.

"Just remember in the States, with the twin reins, hold both sets in your left hand, and pull with that hand in the opposite direction of where you want him to turn. You want the rein to touch the side of his neck to guide him into the turn. Does that make sense?"

Anna frowned but nodded. "I think so."

Anna proved masterful at mounting despite her height. He was a bit shocked, though in retrospect, he shouldn't have been, she had worked her whole life and was strong for her size. He showed her to hold the saddle horn and lowered the stirrup a bit to compensate for her diminutive stature, and before he could blink she was up and over. "And I readjust it here?" she asked leaning forward and unbuckling the strap. He nodded, swallowing, as he attempted to avoid staring at her leg where it peeked from beneath the hiked up hem of her skirts.

"I hope you've stomach enough for a bit of ankle and calf, Mr. Bates. I'm afraid I never learned to ride like a woman should. Besides my good riding breeches are at the laundry," she joked, flashing him a saucy wink.

To his shame, the tone of her voice alone made his cock twitch. His face burned. He hastened to mount Isis, fumbling the billet strap twice as he double checked and tightened the cinch, in a failed attempt to avoid giving away just how flustered he felt. He was nearly cursing when he finally lowered his own stirrup and got a leg up.

She rode well. She had a natural balance and with minor corrections, held herself and the reins with poise. John put her through her paces and watched her ride until he was satisfied that she had a grasp on the basics. He clicked with his tongue and turned Isis to travel westward along the water to a shallow crossing a few hundred yards up the grade.

Pharaoh did indeed follow Isis obediently across the creek and up the trail along the northern side of Fall Creek, and they rode companionably in single file when they turned onto the deer trail. They chatted amiably throughout the ride. Despite seeming distracted, she asked him thoughtful questions about his work: both his work with the Earl and the Earl's investment. She let on that she had never seen one of the redwoods fall as they passed onto Mrs. Ballard's property; she had never even seen one of the big trees up close and whole, beyond what was visible from afar via the train window. They had clear cut the giants around the camp-turned-logging-boomtown and planted Douglas Fir saplings in their stead when the soil started eroding years before she arrived. By then the operations had moved a bit up the grade and up the valley, she explained.

He dismounted, holding tightly to the saddle and sliding carefully to land on his good leg, wondering if he could sneak her up to the outskirts of a fall. He tied up Isis, considering the logistics of it when he noticed her watching him.

"Why are you smiling?" he asked. It was contagious, that smile.

"It's nothing."

"Tell me," he could hear laughter in his voice. She made him feel like a boy again, in the best of ways.

"You'll think me daft." She rolled her eyes.

"Tell me," he prodded her brightly.

"You're not going to like my saying so," she said in a self-deprecating tone. "I was only noticing that you have such pretty hands."

He raised his eyebrows and she continued, slightly more defensive of her observation, "You hold them gracefully and you have long fingers."

"And they are pretty?"

She laughed and nodded. "Beautiful, even."

She colored then, glancing away. When her gaze found him out again, it was with a private look. A look that he felt as much as if she had sought out his body and caressed him. The day had already so greatly exceeded his expectations, he could hardly bear it. Birds were singing loudly nearby; sweet trills and runs.

"If you say so," he stated, his neck and ears flushed.

She grinned and slid off of Pharaoh's back, mimicking his example, but landing on both feet and with far more grace than he could ever muster.

"I do say so," she stated, her smile turned playfully defiant.

"Well, then. Who am I to argue with you, even if I question your taste. Get on with you now. Talk with your Miss Minnie. Tell her I say hello. I'll be here."

He was pleased that she needed to talk to Mrs. Ballard. He was more pleased that she had found something of a protector and confidant in the older woman. From where he stood, the Yorkshire-born lass needed as many people in her corner as could fit. The more he watched and listened, the more he realized that she had friends in every nook and cranny. People who were kind to her very simply because she was kind to them. In a very real way, she had cobbled together her own sort of makeshift family, just like Caleb and Mr. Johnston. It gave him a chance to retrieve the picnic basket full of food from the cabin and walk it out to the picnic site. Across the lot, he noticed the mulatto man he had seen earlier in the week, leading his horse from Mrs. Ballard's barn. The young man raised his hand up in acknowledgement. John returned the gesture. The man must be one of the boarders that passed through the place. He thought that he had seen him around Johnston's livery. He was distinctive looking, a tall young man, with flame colored hair, corded arms and wide shoulders. He mounted and rode his horse off of the property while John tended to His Lordship's in the fenced-in part of the pasture. He removed their bridles and loosened their cinches to give them a bit of time to relax and graze. When he returned and found Anna still cloistered inside with the older woman, he picked small bouquets of the fragrant pink and purple sweet-peas that grew on the south wall of the barn, tied them with long blades of grass and set them what he hoped was artfully around the blanket and basket.

He stood back and surveyed his work with a grin. He was pleased with the combined efforts of himself, Norah-Jane and Mrs. Ballard. Though he still worried that the flowers were too much. He was terrified that she would be overwhelmed and would turn tail and flee. But more than that was a sense that Mrs. Ballard was right; Annie needed to be looked after from time to time.

She exited the cabin looking dazed a few minutes after he finished his final preparations. He was fooling with an impressive upright rosemary bush. She tilted her chin when she noticed him regarding her, then shook her head and crossed her arms. "The two of you will be the death of me. I should have kept you as far away from that plotter as humanly possible." She shook her head and grinned broadly. Her mood seemed decidedly improved. "She tells me I am to sit back, be gracious, and not argue with you."

"Good," he burred, smiling. "Then I would suggest we take a short walk."

He offered her his arm and to his shock, she obligingly took it.

"I hope I haven't been unkind to you, Mr. Bates. My intention has always been to discourage your attentions. Never to be cruel."

"I hope you will not fault me for saying so, my dear Miss Smith, but it has been fairly obvious that your heart hasn't been in your actions. You have yet to affect an air of truly wanting to push me away. You do know that I would have let well enough alone if I thought for a moment you actually wanted me to."

She was quiet at that. When he glanced at her she held her face very still and smooth, save the faint smile that twitched at the corners of her lips. He liked the feel of her strolling along with him, on his arm.

He marked her out of the corner of his eye, caught her open-mouthed gasp when they were within sight of the simple luncheon. He watched her cheer flicker and falter. Her chin trembled and she squeezed her eyes shut and halted her forward motion entirely.

"What-all have you gone and done, you silly beggar?" she whispered, letting go of his arm and covering her mouth, looking pained, blinking rapidly. Her reaction didn't exactly surprise him, but her words did.

"How did you know?" she asked in a hush.

He frowned, unsure of what she meant.

"I never even told Miss Minnie. Did I mention it when I talked about me ma and da? How did you know?"

"Know?" Confusion settled over him.

She stiffened a bit and looked straight ahead.

"Know what, Anna?" Her name clicked in his brain, Anna May Smith; her strange mood suddenly made sense.

"It's in May, isn't it?" he asked. "Your birthday?"

She nodded. Blinked harder and faster. "Today. The nineteenth."

"I didn't realize," he murmured, not sure if he should feel frightened or pleased with the happenstance of it all. He had no idea how she would take it. Secretly, it delighted him to be able to give her something of a special day on her birthday. She looked at him with undisguised suspicion, but he smiled reflexively in his characteristic self-deprecating way. "If I _had_ known, I would have already wished you a _proper_ happy birthday."

He touched her then, hoping to reassure her, emboldened by the memory of her mouth seeking his out less than an hour and a half earlier. He let the fingers of his left hand linger between her shoulder blades, slide down her back. She shivered and looked up at him with wide, storm-blue eyes. He took off his hat, and held her gaze, gathering courage from the desire radiating off of her.

"Happy birthday," he rasped low, asking her for permission with his eyes.

She held his gaze, giving him her answer with the tilt of her head, the touch of gloved fingertips to his jaw. He drew her to his chest and kissed her temple, her cheek, her chin, and finally the curving corner of her lips, all with the tenderest care he could muster. When he finished the gentle gesture, he stood there for a long few moments with his head on her shoulder, surrounding her; holding her as protectively and loosely as he could bear.

"Thank you, Mr. Bates," she whispered. She nestled against him, opened her gloved hand like a flower over the flesh above his hip. He could feel the warm leather through his clothes, the sensual way she held to him; pulsing and searching without letting go.

"You must stop with all of this, Mr. Bates." Her voice was tight and controlled, as it hummed into his chest, "A girl could get far too used to it."

It relieved him immeasurably when she chuckled and added, "Still, Miss Minnie has said I'm to graciously accept whatever the hell you offer. Her words, not mine. So what else have you in store for me today? Beyond a picnic and pony ride, that is. Anything I should prepare myself for? Accomplices set to jump from the trees and caper about in song and dance?"

He chuckled and let go of a breath he didn't know he was holding when Anna smirked and took up her previous course towards the picnic, which, if he said so himself looked comely indeed.

The blue and white gingham was crisp and pretty over the crate, where it sat atop the grey wool blanket. The simple tin place settings, two plates, two cups, and two forks, shone brightly in the sun. The field was gently sloped and bore a scattering of large boulders that tended to each have a cluster of shrubs growing about them. He had arranged it so that the picnic blanket butted up against one such boulder on the far side of the meadow and lay protected behind an unruly cluster of huckleberry bushes. (He recognized it as the same sort of bush that she draped her dress over on Wednesday when he found her en dishabille.) It was secluded from the sightline of the main house and cottages, but with a full view of the horses as they cavorted happily in the small fenced-in pasture.

She scooped up a bouquet and smiled at the flowers, touching the blooms with her fingertips before pressing them to her face and breathing deeply. She turned and took in the view of the scrubby, tree-ringed field, cocked her head and listened to the sound of the stream that lay just out of sight to the north of them, and he took advantage of her lack of attention to gracelessly lower himself to the blanket. Only when he had settled and ceased his movements did she turn back to him. He hadn't prepared himself adequately for the silent joy that sang through him when she sat not across from but next to him and what's more, settled herself into him.

"You seem to have a predilection for making sure I am fed," she commented, leaning towards the picnic basket. Opening it, she squinted at its contents and frowned.

"No oysters?" she asked and unable to maintain her mock displeasure, laughed and grinned.

He ducked his head, pleased with her teasing. "I much prefer oysters fresh, eaten where you can smell the salt of the sea."

"In that we are of similar minds."

"I think perhaps in quite a few things we are of similar minds."

She glanced sidelong at him, her expression once again guarded. "Though not all," she countered gently.

"All the more fortunate, as I do rather enjoy an impassioned debate from time to time."

She shook her head and laughed, raised her eyebrows at him. "You've an answer to everything, haven't you Mr. Bates?"

"I was just thinking the very same thought about you, Miss Smith. It is one of the things that delights me when I am lucky enough to share your company."

She looked at him, once again she wore a pained expression. "There you go again being so sweet that it makes me want to weep. You must stop that."

He watched her as she regarded him, as she shifted her position, so that she knelt facing him, and then she was kissing him again and he was hard and groaning into her open mouth and forgetting himself and his searching hands until her stomach growled. He felt hollow when she pulled away from him, and ashamed at how easy it was to be carried away by the moment. Until she caught his eye at least, for then they both laughed sheepishly at themselves and without another word, attention was turned to the picnic basket - at least _her_ attention was turned to the picnic basket; his fell to the swell of her backside. She was soft flesh and hard muscle and had been so solid in his arms.

She made delighted sounds over the food, food that he barely tasted, so aware of her proximity, he was. Norah-Jane had packed simple choices. Things that transported well and were easy to eat with hands. Hard-boiled eggs, bread and cheese wrapped around sliced pork-sausage that she cased herself, flavored with sage, salt, and minced dried apple, and a savory chicken and onion hand-pie. Her note to John had said that they could share each or choose the one they favored as she couldn't decide which of them to cook. Of course Anna insisted on sharing when he explained. She blushed deeply when he admitted to employing Norah-Jane for their meal, looked into the trees for long enough to make John nervous. He pulled the bottle of sarsaparilla from the basket and opened it, pouring some into both of their tin cups. He had been delighted by its appearance in the basket, would need to pay Norah-Jane extra for that. The way Anna had accepted the cup with a shy smile and wrinkled her nose as the bubbles tickled it settled his nerves.

She still seemed distracted, but at least she was relaxing into the circumstance and enjoying herself. She watched the horses absently while they chatted and worked their way through the meal. The horses enjoyed their time together. They played, a herd of two; Pharaoh deferring to Isis, despite her age and more diminutive size. He payed close attention to her - mimicked her movements and trotted to her side if she wandered too far afield. He raced to follow her from one side of the split-rail fence and back as a dynamite blast sounded up the mountain. They returned to the spot where they had been spooked, with their tails up, still in good spirits, standing together to stare in the direction of the sound, ears perked sharply.

"Miss Minnie uses this field for crops and to give the kitchen garden a rest every five years or so," Anne said in between bites. "She said she's been sweetening it up these last two years; letting it go fallow. She rotates her gardens to keep the soil rich. She's been teaching me. About that and nursing folks; she says I am good at both."

"It seems to me that you are far more capable a woman than you give yourself credit for."

She smiled and went silent. There were a few slices of lemon cake; small, solid, bright-yellow bars of little else besides butter, sugar, lemon, egg and flour that in his estimation tasted of spring and sunlight. He offered her one and she accepted it was a quiet word of thanks. She had already cooed over and helped herself to one of the American-style biscuits and smothered it with the strawberry rhubarb preserves Mrs. Ballard had included, exclaiming that strawberry rhubarb was her favorite. It pleased him immeasurably that she had such a hearty appetite.

"Really, you shouldn't have gone to such trouble. Not for me." She sighed and frowned, as she finished her square of the lemon cake. "It was so lovely, but I'll never be able to repay you."

He felt suddenly disturbed by a rather insidious thought. "I do hope you know that I have no expectation of ... that you needn't feel obliged to do _anything_ to repay me."

"And I do hope that you know that you are no obligation to me, Mr. Bates. I only wish I had the means to treat you as you treat me."

"Good, as long as we are unanimous that you owe me nothing. Now, in regards to your fretting over repayment, what did Mrs. Ballard tell you about today? Something about sitting back and graciously accepting what is offered to you?" He could barely stand to look at her, she was so lovely. Though she was more lovely when she was sure of herself and smiling. He knew his next statement would likely deepen her frown; still he couldn't help but go on. He reached out and touched her arm, as though it might help cement his words. "Your presence here, your enjoyment of the morning is the only repayment I desire. You deserve so much more than I could ever give you. Besides, everyone should be the recipient of a bit of spoiling from time to time. Even you."

She sniffed lightly and when he looked out of the corner of his eye, she was blinking hard. "Thank you, Mr. Bates, even if we are not in agreement."

"In this we will have to agree to disagree," he murmured. "How I see it; this comes nowhere near to what you deserve."

"Well, whether or not I deserve it aside, I certainly feel spoiled. Everything has been splendid. Would you help me to pass a note of thanks on to Mrs. Cooper for her cooking?"

"Of course."

"Good." She touched his hand, threaded her fingers through his. "It really is lovely, what you've done, how good you are to me. I know I shouldn't encourage your affections; it isn't right to give a body false hope. But I am so very grateful. This has been a treat the likes of which I've never known."

He drew her hand to his lips and kissed it, pulled it gently, encouraging her to lean back into him, which she did, to his deep satisfaction.

They held space well together, in his estimation. Stories and silences flowed comfortably between them. He tried to loan her the book of poetry. Cleared his throat and worked up his nerve. He had stowed it in the pocket of his waistcoat, wrapped in the same brown paper as _The Prince and The Pauper._ The words she had written down on it had been dutifully looked up - their definitions carefully printed out. He was confused by her refusal when he pulled it from his pocket and offered it to her.

"It is a bit of a strange time, you see. I daren't take it on just now," she said not quite meeting his eye. When she did finally, it was with a wistful smile. "Perhaps you could read some of it to me now?"

He blushed, knowing full well why he had chosen _Leaves of Grass_ and that his reasoning didn't include reading it out loud in daylight, en plein air. Still, how could he deny her such a simple request when she asked so little of him?

He cleared his throat and began at the beginning.

_"I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,_

_And what I assume you shall assume,_

_For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."_

He had to read the words without listening to them, they were so raw and pulsing with life. He had forgotten just how quickly the first poem became sensual. Six stanzas in and he was tripping on his tongue and doing everything in his power to focus his attention on saying words, and ignoring his growing erection.

"_The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the_

_distillation, it is odorless,_

_It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,_

_I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised_

_and naked,_

_I am mad for it to be in contact with me."_

Focus was nearly impossible for he pictured her, in her thin chemise and bare feet by the San Lorenzo.

"_The smoke of my own breath,_

_Echoes, ripples, buzz'd whispers, love-root, silk-thread,_

_crotch and vine,_

_My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the_

_passing of blood and air through my lungs,_

_The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and_

_dark-color'd sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,_

_The sound of the belch'd words of my voice loos'd to the_

_eddies of the wind,_

_A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,_

_The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs_

_wag,_

_The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the_

_fields and hill-sides,_

_The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising_

_from bed and meeting the sun."_

He read, carrying on dutifully. Had forgotten that the first poem, "Song of Myself" was so very long. Slowly he regained his composure, his voice evened out and droned on. He had to silence his own chuckle when he heard her start to snore. The noise continued long enough that he closed the book and settled them both into a more comfortable position. She nuzzled against him, sighing deeply, curling and tucking her petite form into his bulk. And in the warm, mid morning sun, he let his guard drop and tears fall silently from the corners of his eyes at the pure, unadulterated joy he felt to be the object of her trust and affection.

One word after another, one memory at a time, he thought, they were paving a path, together.

Slowly, they were writing their own song.


	13. Confessions

She woke slowly, with the expanse of his body slack around her. She felt him tense under her as she stirred. She focused herself to the feel of his chest rising and falling. His watch fob glittered in the sun. He began smoothing his hand slowly up and down her back, and she matched her breathing to the beat of his heart. She had fallen asleep to the burr of his voice vibrating through her, reading beautiful, verdant words. She was drowsy and warm, and they were wrapped satisfyingly around each other. Her elbow hurt and the memory of her last waking, when she fell, shoved hard from the bed, curses and venom being spat at her, hit her in the gut with a sinking feeling so strong it made her wince. Vi was most likely awake by now and fit to be tied at her absence. It was far later than she had intended on staying. Her motion stopped him short and his hands fell away from her. He hummed a wordless question of concern into her hair.

"It's alright, I was just thinking about the rest of the day," she said quietly. It wasn't an untrue statement.

He started to sit up. "If you need to get back..."

"I do," she said, sighing deeply. "But not this very moment. I don't want to go back just yet."

She lifted herself up on her elbow and looked at him from under her eyelashes, intent on distracting herself.

"You don't have to stop, you know; you can touch me, if you want, Mr. Bates," she whispered. "I don't mind. I rather like it when you touch me."

He looked at her, unreadably; she couldn't tell if he was uncomfortable or aroused, or both.

"There are times I think you'd have a much easier go of things, Mr. Bates if you were to get it out of your system and just lay with me and be done with it. Though that would bring about its own set of problems. This notion you seem to have that we can live happily ever after is ridiculous."

She surprised herself with her boldness, (her fool boldness - it made her arousal lick from deep inside of her chest to the tightened points of her nipples) and let her hand slide where it shouldn't over his length. He was hard and she felt him twitch at her touch, felt the low rumble of his groan before he pulled her hand away.

"Anna," he rasped. "Please. Don't."

"Some of the only true and wonderful things that I have in this world are memories," she murmured, taking advantage of his gentle grip on her to draw his hand to her mouth, bestowing kisses on its heel, nipping the tip of his thumb.

"I'd not mind making a few new ones with you. Something to warm us, years from now when we look back on it."

"I don't want things to get out of hand," he said; his voice like smoke and gravel. His tone made her breath catch.

"You wouldn't let them get out of hand."

"We are already well out of hand," he stuttered as she pressed his palm to her cheek. She slid his hand, with her small one atop it over her jaw and down her throat, to cup her breast. He groaned and opened to her when she kissed him deeply, possessively. She grinned against his mouth, pressed herself tightly to his torso, knowing good and well he would stop them. He pulled his hand away, but only when she began to guide it down past her waist.

"This isn't what I want," he whispered against her lips.

She kissed him again, and again her treacherous hand snaked its way between his legs. "Your body begs to differ, Mr. Bates," she stated matter-of-factly with a smile. She needed to back off. He groaned and bucked against her open palm even as he continued to whisper his protest. He was telling her to stop. She didn't want to stop. His mouth was open and warm, his tongue strong and searching. And then they both needed to stop to gather their wits and lungfuls of air, and he was repeating his protest.

"This isn't what I want," he whispered against her mouth. He shivered and tensed when he drew her hand from his groin. "It isn't what you want either, if you don't mind my being so bold as to say it."

"It's all there is for us," she said quietly, her voice catching in her throat. Something unseen and vast had opened within her. It had never been like this; not with any man. She hadn't known. She had committed every act one person could with another in her life, and up until that very morning she hadn't understood what making love meant. She kissed him again to silence him, to soften his resolve, before she pulled him on top of her and parted her legs to cradle his hips. They couldn't and she knew it, and she needed to tell him so, and why, but in that moment she only wanted to feel his weight pressing her intimately into the soft earth of the meadow; just a memory to paint her cold nights. She knew he would never let things go too far. He was much too respectful and honorable for that.

Sure enough, his kisses deepened almost frantically for a swollen stretch of time and then he pushed away from her, holding himself off of her, his breath gone ragged and wild.

"No," he said, in that rough voice that only made her want him all the more. "Not like this." He took her hand, turned it over and kissed her palm.

"Not like this," he repeated, almost to himself, in a tone that sobered them both.

She swallowed. Closed her mouth to silence her breath and blinked hard. This had been a mistake. Accepting the offer of the ride, coming here with him, the food, touching him, kissing him, asking him to read. Like most everything she ever did. All of it was a mistake. To pretend she could kiss him and have it just be kissing and not some sort of chaste version of love-making. She had no business toying with the notion of sharing any part of her body with him, not with what came along with it. She swallowed again and smiled through her own embarrassment because he looked so torn.

"Like what then? What have you envisioned? Sliding over satin sheets? A four-postered bed?" She teased him to hide her discomfort and doubt, then hoped he could hear the softness she felt. Because she knew that he would want those things. Not because she deserved them, but because he was tender and dear and ridiculously sentimental.

He took her ribbing with only a bemused expression that deepened the lines around his eyes. She wanted to tell him he was beautiful. Instead she slid a hand behind his head to encourage him back to her lips.

His response was whispered against her mouth and it stopped her. "I wouldn't argue against a bed, or a ring for that matter."

She felt as though she were listening to someone else when she heard her voice focus to a quiet chirp, barely louder than a whisper, "Was that a proposal, Mr. Bates?"

He looked at her with wide, hopeful eyes. Nodded.

Moving away from him, she sat up, pulled her knees to her chin and took a deep breath. She shouldn't be surprised. She had known they had been headed this direction from almost the beginning. Still.

"I shouldn't like to hear you say it, but I do." She tried not to sound as fragile as she felt. It was funny to roll away from a man and look down at her body to find it fully clothed yet still feel naked. She pulled her arms tightly around her knees. "Thank you, even if we both know what the answer has to be."

"What do you _want_ it to be?"

"You keep asking me what I want," she said sharper than she meant to. "My wishes and wants have nothing to do with what is."

"But you have them, regardless."

"I want _you_ Mr. Bates." Her voice quavered with so much more than desire. "I know it's not ladylike to say it, but you were the only person to ever say I was a lady. I knew I'd prove you wrong eventually."

He shook his head. "Shhh. You've proved no such thing. And I would argue that your wishes and wants matter very much to me," he stated in an earnest murmur. "You are so much more than you seem to think you are."

She frowned and nipped at her lower lip. "What makes you so very sure of that Mr. Bates?"

When he touched her she again felt bare; naked and insignificant, but in the way one is insignificant in the face of the stars. His palm seemed to span the entire width of her back. He kissed her shoulder with a staggering sort of reverence, like she was someone to be treasured, and she had to actively fight back her tears.

"Because you've given me a glimpse of what you have hiding beneath all the alyssum and it is plain as day to anyone who's looking that you are someone special. I've never felt this before, what I feel for you."

She turned to regard him. She wouldn't soon tire of him, or the tenderness of his kisses, she decided, even if he was impossible, even if they were impossible. Even if the way he treated her made her want to weep from the unmitigated sweetness of it all.

"There is more to it than what we feel for one another," she said feeling her skin burn a vibrant pink, trying to find her courage and her footing. "It's not as simple as all that."

When he looked at her like he did, he made her feel like a woman — not a whore, not a thing, not a girl, not a piece of meat — a woman. And it terrified her even as she fought the corresponding warmth that flushed her breasts and the tightness low in her stomach. She didn't know how to be a woman. Not really.

"We've had versions of this conversation, Mr. Bates." She tried not to sound shrill. "Nothing would come of it but suffering and I should never like to see you suffer. I couldn't do that to you for so many reasons, not the least of which being that it would bring you nothing but ruin, Mr. Bates."

He held her gaze, sweetly defiant, his eyes soulful and affectionate.

"The only ruin I could ever recognize is to be without you," he whispered with heart-rending conviction.

Tears slipped from her eyes despite her best efforts. She wiped them briskly, swallowed hard, and failed to keep her words steady. "Hush. You say that but you don't understand."

She worked her jaw, trying to build her courage. He had to understand just how unsuitable she was. "It's perverted me; that much fucking," she said harshly, hardening herself. She needed to show him who she had become, to hear the vulgarities of her life. "After Vi taught me how to take control of the situation and lead the proceedings, to make sure I found my own pleasure, I learned to like it, to want it. I could never be any sort of decent wife to any man; it's all I think about, it's all I ever seem to be wanting to do. It has made me into some sort of deviant. How could it be normal to want to rut as much as I do? I'm a whore and a slut - I'm no fit wife. Not to any man, let alone an upstanding man like you."

She felt the heat from his body behind her and then he was surrounding her, wrapping her gently in his arms. She should have known he wouldn't be so easily discouraged. She choked on her tears, blinked them back as quickly as she could, finally just let them fall. It felt too good to be held like that. She could almost guess what he would say.

"None of that matters to me. I... I love you, Anna."

She felt cherished in his arms, tucked to his chest and throat. She had almost forgotten over the years what that was like, but each time he held her, he reminded her.

"I know you do." She turned and found his gaze, touched his face, cupped his cheek with her palm while she slowly gathered her courage and momentum. When she began to speak, she found that again she couldn't bear to look at him, that she needed her arms folded across her abdomen. She didn't pull away from the circle of his embrace entirely. Instead, she turned in it, resting against his chest. "But it isn't as simple as you sweeping in here and rescuing me from my mistakes, Mr. Bates." She sighed. "Or the depth and truth of your love and good intentions. I feel them well enough. You needn't prove them to me," she said "We are good together you and I, that much is plain to see. It isn't that. And it isn't just what others would say."

She hated to think about what was likely happening to her body, what sorts of diseases she couldn't help but be harboring. She spent a good deal of time pretending such things didn't exist. But there were particular likelihoods in her line of work. She took a deep breath before she spoke.

"I haven't any signs of it now, but from time to time I find myself with certain bouts of discomfort. No one doing what I do as long as I have avoids suffering from some affliction or another. Miss Minnie said that a person who shows no symptoms at all can still carry and pass the contagion. I ... I shouldn't like to do that to you."

"It wouldn't be anything that my wife hadn't already brought to our marriage bed," he said quietly after clearing his throat.

"Oh," she said feeling all at once foolish and confused. "Your wife."

The words twisted in the air between them and she felt as though she were prying, just speaking them out loud. It sat like a sudden stone in her gut, just how little she really knew about him. She hadn't thought of that possibility, of him already carrying something. Nor did he give the air of being a married man. She didn't know if she should move from his arms, or stay where she was. Either way her innards twisted with embarrassment.

"I was married," he said with a strange finality.

"You aren't anymore?"

"She's ... She died." He immediately shook his head. "That's not true. She was found dead, strangled; her money, valuables, even her hat and dress stolen."

"You have my condolences, Mr. Bates," she said automatically, if unevenly. She suspected that her eyes must look like saucers. "I'm sorry to hear it."

* * *

><p>He looked at his hands. He held the reins of the conversation now and seemed entirely unsure of how to continue it. "I should have told you already. You have every right to know. It was ... complicated. She was... Her body was found in an alley, in a very questionable area of London. I suspect she was there of her own volition. I was away on a regimental training exercise. I wish I could say I was shocked. Things were never good between us. I knew she was unfaithful, and I knew she enjoyed drink and gambling, but I didn't realize the scope of the debts she had acquired until after she died. I can never be sure, but I suspect she was killed either directly because of the money she owed, or due to activities pertaining to it. It is certainly possible she was trying to earn money. I'll never know, and I'm not sure I'd ever care to."<p>

Anna looked at him fully. "You have my condolences, Mr. Bates. That must have been terribly hard on you."

He frowned, fighting off a sickening sense of embarrassment.

"That's just it," he said after a long pause. "I'm ashamed to say it, but given the state of our marriage, I was relieved."

It had been his fault easily as much as hers. He egged Vera on with his words then sat, proud, snide and calmly judgmental when she was screaming. Taunted her with his suspicions and silent accusations. Her deceits gnawed at him and forced him to face his own limitations. She threw his ankle in his face, his failure to adjust once the Ashanti War had ended. They didn't like each other. That was close to the root of it. What was more, he didn't like who he was when he was with her. Not remotely. It had been a poor match from the start.

Vera was sultry and bold and passionate when he had met her, when their dalliance began. She didn't care for what people thought and in a way he admired that. Until it was his thoughts she didn't give a damn about. Until the drinking got so bad all they did was argue and despise each other and fuck and argue and fuck some more.

He tried to explain to Anna that for him and Vera, life was a dance of dominion, of domination, made immeasurably worse by his return from the war. She had gotten far too accustomed to his absence and refused to play the role she had affected to win him. Their connection was exposed for what it was: lust-filled, temporary madness. He told Anna so. He had admired Vera's fight. Had believed her flirtations. And if he were honest, he, like she, sold himself to her. He didn't misrepresent himself or his trajectory for advancement in the regiment. Not exactly, but he had puffed himself up like the fool he was, for even in his late twenties he still played the lad with the others down at the pub. He preened and peacocked about to win her dark smolder, as though it was a prize to be won. She had ignored him for a long time and then she was everywhere and molten and they were fierce together; thunder and lightning, and rutting constantly, and then she was carrying his child and they were married and living together and he could smell it two weeks later when she had started to bleed.

Anna listened with wide eyes and her mouth a thin line. He waited; she said nothing and he found himself continuing.

"Vera didn't grow in the belly. Instead, she announced nearly four months later, in a letter, that took weeks to get to me on the western coast of Africa, that she had lost the baby." He tried to find words to express what it felt like, to have his suspicions confirmed, how much he resented her in that moment. After that he was never sure if her words were truth or lies. The cracks in their foundation widened and their arguments were fierce, crumbling them further. She spent money faster than either of them made it. She grew rusty and ragged, predictably unpredictable. She would croon at him or curse, depending on her mood and level of inebriation. She drank far too much, cuckolded him repeatedly. They both did anything to punish or get a rise out of the other. He took her punishments and added his own to the mix until he couldn't anymore. Until he despised himself and wanted to do dark things. After he left, she threatened and cajoled, taunted him and then begged. But nothing would move him. Not even her death. He felt guilty that he didn't feel more about her dying. He tried to explain.

He didn't realize he had lapsed into silence until Anna prodded him gently. "Why are you telling me this Mr. Bates?"

"Because you are not the only one who feels shame over choices they have made in their life or ways they have felt and behaved. I was a terrible husband to her. She ... She and I were never a good match. It was a blind, foolish decision to marry her. I should have known better, if not in the way she treated me, in the way she treated my mother. It caused a rift between us - my mother and I - when Vera and I wed. I should have waited to see if there really was a baby. My mother saw the truth of it; Vera was only interested in what she could make out of the situation. She saw my mother's house and my uniform. She liked being a soldier's wife. Liked both the income it gave her and the freedom to come and go as she pleased. When I came home from the war, that was when things got bad. We were forever fighting. She started disappearing. For days at a time. I never bothered to look for her. Maybe if I had she would still be alive. I grew to despise her, but I never wanted her dead. The police suspected me at first; a neighbor that she was friendly with came forward and told of our rows. If not for the regimental training, I would have been the main suspect. I'm not as fine of a man as you seem to think I am. You should know that."

"Well the fact that you are telling me at all shows that you are a finer man than you think you are." She frowned and looked at her hands. She rubbed her palm with the pad of her thumb uncomfortably. "It isn't any of my business though. You don't owe me any sort of..."

"You said that you liked that there was honesty between us," he interrupted. "I do as well. I ... I should like to show you the hand I'm holding."

"Thank you for that. And I beg your pardon Mr. Bates, but you deserve a wife who would treat you far better than your Vera did."

"You offering to fill the position?" he asked, his tone playful again.

She swatted him lightly and grinned at him. "That isn't what I meant, Mr. Bates. You also deserve a wife who isn't a prostitute."

"That is what you have had to do, not who you are," he said. He touched her arm, ran his hand down its length and tangled his fingers with hers. "So tell me again of your argument against our courtship?"

She held onto his hand while she spoke, avoiding his eyes, betraying the words that pushed him away by physically holding him tighter. "I could love you, Mr. Bates. Easily. But love just isn't always enough in this world." She turned into him and touched his face, and before she could talk herself away from her intention, laid a feather-light kiss on the rough skin of his throat, his chin, and then his lips. "I do love you. Don't mistake me. But nothing good will come of it and you deserve so much more than I could ever offer you."

"Funny, I was just thinking the same thing; that you deserve so much more than I could ever offer you." He slid his fingertips up over her back again, kissed her before she could respond. She sank into him, lost herself in the sounds of their bodies coming together; the wet slide of tongues, the rustle of fabric, the throaty noises he made, the loud ragged sounds of their breath.


	14. Interlude III

They were swollen and budded; teased to a buzzing, vernal arousal. The rawness of their need charged the air between them, made their kisses naked and deep, turned their movements primal. She dutifully tested the boundaries of his honor, found the limits of what he would and would not allow. The meat of her hips, the hard lines of her collar and shoulders, her throat and chin were all permissible. But when she pressed his palm to the heat between her legs, or to her aching breasts, he steadfastly pulled away. With small, sweet kisses (and searingly sharp ones too) she accepted the lines he drew and instead she held him tight between her open thighs, wove herself like roots about him and took his weight until it was hard to breathe. She sighed and groaned against his jaw when he caught her earlobe between his teeth. The rasp of his clean-shaven skin on her throat made her shiver. They spent the better part of the morning and early afternoon catching their breath and losing it again.

Their kisses softened, slowed and finally stopped. They slipped into silence, when he rolled off of her and lay together, listening to the breeze in the grass. Her gaze fell on the false flowers of her hat. It dangled from the corner of the crate, made cheery and picturesque by the blue gingham. Her hair must be a mess. Her sex was sticky beneath her bloomers. Her mouth felt tender and swollen. And it was now well into the afternoon.

"I need to get back," she murmured, the sick and sudden feeling of dread tugging at her edges. "I've been gone far too long."


	15. Doors & Windows

Vi was up earlier than she expected, filling and then retching into the piss-pot. She vaguely remembered waking and throwing a glass at Annie. It was a good thing, too, for the presumptuous little shit hadn't come back to sweep it up. (Rosie wouldn't be doing any sweeping, that much she knew when taking the bitch on. If Vi was honest, she only hired Rosie on to annoy Annie, to show her who was the boss.) She was like to lodge a shard in her foot if she wasn't careful.

There was a pitcher on her desk, sitting on a folded rag. Annie must have brought her water. She sighed. Her key was hung from the inside doorknob; Séam's signature key return. A broom and dustpan were leaned against the wall, likely Fern's handiwork. It occurred to her, as she picked her way carefully across the room, that it had been tidied. Her sheets were freshened and the window propped a crack for the first time since Sunday, when she brought in that sly bitch Rosie in Annie's stead.

"Fucking shit," she spat. The girl had been trying to get back in her good graces.

She drank straight from the pitcher in long, parched gulps. She nearly drained it, grateful for the much-needed water. She felt something akin to guilt for shoving Annie out of her bed, but finding Annie presumptuously spooning her had enraged Vi. Sure, Annie had some groveling and repenting she needed to do before Vi was willing to let the girl back into her bed, but even she had to admit that her reaction was more akin to irrational hysterics than anything else.

Still, Vi reasoned, she wouldn't be lied to and she wouldn't be stolen from. Obviously Alyssum Annie needed her expectations shifted over. Annie's choices warranted a bit of weeding and deadheading on Vi's behalf. There was no room in that Englishman's life for a low-class whore - not when he worked with high-class people. She had seen it again and again, girls lured away from the saloons by charming or rich men, to be used for free and then thrown to the gutters ten towns over, when their novelty faded.

Pretty girls were a dime a dozen, and most — once you taught them where their little button was — were eager enough to please and be pleased. Annie was different. She knew what Vi needed and didn't ask unnecessary questions. She knew how to make herself just as useful working the tables as she did working a cock or balancing the books (Vi would be forever grateful to Annie for finding the blasted forty two cents that had plagued her for half a year). Fern and Séam, even Dawn, were all critical to the Garden's function, but Annie was at its heart and soul - though Vi wouldn't ever say it out loud. She kept the jacks happy, she kept the girls happy; she kept the cogs oiled and turning. She'd been running the place for years, and Vi knew it. Annie was too important to the upkeep of the Garden. Too important to Vi for Vi to allow her to ruin her future with that man. Annie was special.

Rosie was a piece of dried dog shit in comparison. She thought too much of herself, alienated tricks she didn't find desirable and had an attitude the size of a mule train. Vi was growing to hate that cunt, but knew her type and how to handle her well enough. Rosie was good for a satisfyingly rough diddle, even if her loyalties turned the moment that Vi's office door clicked shut. Rosie hadn't done shit to clean up or tend things like Annie did. The room had worked itself into a sour state over the last week. Vi was rapidly tiring of Rosie's presence. Still, Annie had been getting far too full of herself and forgetting her place for a while now. Vi couldn't let her foundling get away with out-right theft, and giving it up to that gimp-dandy was as good as stealing.

She nearly stumbled on her way downstairs, and argued briefly with Dawn. The cook was like a cranky, half-blind bitch-dog that barked at everything. They had been through too much together, knew each other too well and fought like a bitter, old married couple. She suffered through the stink-eye given her from Fern and Séamus. Fucking ingrates. She took a letter handed her by Fern, rolled her eyes when she saw it was from the witch-woman. She irritably exempted herself from the present Friday morning sourness by shuffling through to the baths, though not before filling her flask and taking a long pull. Enoch was absent. She'd poke at him later; she was tired to death of his bullshit. But keeping him on was part of the deal that had bought her the Garden. Daphne was looking after the tubs and fires in his stead. Vi watched the girl's panic with dull annoyance.

"Just pour me a clean tub, you nitwit," Vi barked, before the mousy brunette could say a word. "And make it hot."

Daphne snapped to work. As much as the teen irritated Vi, and with as little money as Daphne actually pulled in, Vi would be in her rights as a businesswoman to toss her out. But Daphne was a decided and undeniable help to Dawn. So Vi grumbled and griped at the girl, (she had enjoyed throwing that shoe at Daphne far too much) but otherwise left her alone.

Vi read the letter while she waited; she didn't believe its contents for a minute. She had known then, without a doubt, John Bates was involved with this somehow.

Annie was gone to see him. Which meant not only that Annie was lying to her, but that Miss Minnie was too. She was not terribly surprised by that knowledge, but it irked her nonetheless.

It was a theory which was confirmed hours later, when she caught sight of Annie slipping from behind the Queen of Hearts. The apprehensive glance Annie cast at Vi's window was all the proof she needed. Vi knew well enough to stand far back in the gloom of the room. Annie didn't see her. Neither did Mr. Bates, when he stepped out from behind the building and raised a hand to his hat to bid her farewell.

The valet's association with Annie bothered Vi more than she was willing to admit. He had been poking around for a long time now, nose upturned, holding himself above the common folk. Sniffing around her girl. Her best girl. Vi had caught sight of him guiding his horse down the alleyway alongside the building more than once. Only a few days earlier, she had snuck through Annie's garden to the edge of the cleared part of the property. From her vantage point near the beech tree, she had watched them. Nothing happened, not beyond the two of them talking and gesturing, but she could feel it in the way they looked at one another.

She hated both of them in that moment so much it felt like fear. It raced through her and set her teeth clenching, her blood racing. Her thoughts turned to Heinrich Kant. The ways he looked at her when Séam's back was turned, the way he spoke softly with her in the dim daylight inside. The smile he afforded her when she poured him a shot of whiskey. All of those things told her what she needed to know. Once every long while, and only when it was just them two at the bar, her fingers would linger on the base of the shot glass, and he would let his hand slide over hers, and for the briefest moments she could feel nothing beyond the burning place where their skin touched. It was a newer occurrence, one to which she was as yet unaccustomed. She couldn't quite meet his eye in the moment. Just before and just after, but not while his hand rested over hers. And it made her so deeply angry, because of all people, she should be the one to decipher exactly what would bring him the most joy, to keep him contented and satisfied. His wife didn't make him happy. She was a sickly-looking, pinched creature, all angles and bitterness.

If anyone had earned the right to follow her heart and try to find happiness, it was Vi. She had put her time in, paid her dues, sacrificed, taken care of her girls; it should be her turn. But she knew the impossibility. She knew her limits, whereas Annie was spitting at the wind. To see her best girl ignoring the strictures of their life bothered her; the lies and sneaking about was like a knife in her back.

Vi wasn't blind, nor was she stupid; not until she drank herself that way. Even then, she had an ear and an eye open. She remembered an astonishing amount from when she was nearly passing out from drink. Which was frustrating, for the whiskey was to make her forget. At least, it was, once she finished drinking to dull the headache and still her shaking hands. She was letting things slip. Never would she have ever let any girl get away with as much as Annie did. What the little bitch thought she was doing, Vi wasn't sure. She had taught her better. There wasn't life after whoring; there was no turning away from it. There certainly weren't happy endings. Vi herself was sure enough proof of that.

...

In the shade of the trees behind the Queen of Hearts, Anna held onto Mr. Bates. She pressed her nose to his shoulder and breathed him in, as though the smell of stale whiskey, wool, sweat, and sunshine could somehow save her from herself. She didn't want to let him go. Somehow she managed to stave off her tears as the two of them lingered over their goodbyes. Gentle kisses were softly given and tenderly taken.

Mr. Bates looked at her, touched the angle of her jaw, and frowned. She took in the concern that deepened the lines framing his mouth and fanning from the corners of his eyes. It made her feel full inside. Warm and full. There was a very small handful of people in her life who looked at her like that. Lit, Miss Minnie, Fern, Dawn, and from time to time, Séam. Not Vi. At least not anytime in recent memory.

She held his gaze and smiled, found herself trying to soothe his fretting. Anna hated that she had allowed her flood of self indulgence — the tightness to which she clung to him — to cause Mr. Bates any concern.

"Thank you," she said. "For the grandest, loveliest birthday. For being so kind. For everything."

She had to turn away before she began to weep. She forced herself to start walking then. It felt as though she was saying a real goodbye to him, closing something akin to a door. As though nothing in her life would ever be as lovely as the last few hours. (Though her mind still swam with possibilities, echoes of sensations.) Proper dread set in as each step delivered her closer to the shameful realities of her life and pulled her further from hope and possibility.

The only thing that kept her moving was her conversation with Miss Minnie. She clung to the memory of the woman's warm smile. A dynamite blast thundered down the ridge and through the valley. Anna wondered what it must be to find yourself broken open and blown apart, to feel the air for the first time in a millennia. The limestone was made of ancient sea creatures, and now they were released from their graves to be cooked in kilns, crushed, and remade into quick-lime. More than one kiln worker had told her how useful it was. It became an additive in mortar and plaster and concrete, in making paper, and was used to process hides into leather in the tannery that toiled and stank next to the rail line to Santa Cruz. She wondered if the earth — the very stones — could feel pain. How much did it hurt to be remade into something new? She walked briskly across the thoroughfare, trying and likely failing to look inconspicuous.

Annie couldn't see Vi in the window, and hoped her return would go quietly unnoticed. She rounded the steps of the Garden and stood at the mouth of the alley before she turned to look back. Mr. Bates peered from behind the Queen of Hearts, watching her. She raised her palm in silent farewell. He smiled and touched the brim of his hat, and she felt a peace rise up in her. Even if they could never be part of each other's lives, not properly, she loved him, and she believed him when he said he loved her. It made her feel brave, loving him, accepting his love in return. (She couldn't quite let it bring her happiness, for she tended to fear happiness; it was a feeling too easily lost.) She realized how much she needed more people in her life that she loved. That which she felt radiating from her when she was with Lit or Miss Minnie, or her Mr. Bates, even the memory of how much she cared for sweet Eunice, all of it made her feel strong. It made her feel like more than she was. She needed the sense of trust and peace she had when she was with them. A prayer that one of the girls had taught her floated into her mind.

Lord make me an instrument of thy peace;

Where there is hatred let me show love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Returning to the Garden after her beautiful day with Mr. Bates was one of the harder acts she had performed. She had to recite the prayer three times before she could make herself push through the back door.

...

Minnerva was thinking of him, her Ian, when Annie walked in that morning. Ian's shoulder was nothing really. Inflamed ligaments. She was good at postulating treatments, based on her knowledge of anatomy, and together they had worked out a few ways to stretch and loosen it. And before she sent him off for the day she had wrapped it with a still-hot poultice of sage and vinegar. She felt confident that it would help ease the tension.

He couldn't stay. Not for long, or they'd give themselves away. Look at how obvious things were between Annie and her Mr. Bates. Despite all the distractions of the night and morning, she had miraculously remembered that it was the day Mr. Bates had planned out the picnic. She dutifully left everything that he needed in the lean-to closest the field only a half of an hour prior to their arrival. It didn't take but two words from Annie for Minn to see that something was very wrong.

"What's happened?" She stretched a hand to the younger woman. Annie took it and let herself be tucked under Minn's arm. She didn't look frightened. Instead she looked determined, and that made Minnerva Ballard far more nervous.

"What's the old hag done?"

"It's nothing. It's just that ... she's ... I don't know what to expect anymore," she said quietly.

"Mmmhmm?"

"I can handle damn near all of Vi's usual moods, but she is changing and it's getting bad. I want to have thought of all the angles. I need to count what's in my tin and see how close I am. Even unreasonable, she understands the value of a dollar. I need to figure out my options."

"Isn't that the damn truth. That old snake. What of that poor, sweet man who's heartsick over you?"

"What of him?"

"He an option?"

"Not in this," the younger woman said. "I need to take care of this myself."

"After you take care of things? What about then?"

There was surprising venom in the glare Annie shot Minn.

"Just go get the tin and help me count."

Minn nodded, unlocked and slipped inside her bedroom to retrieve the tin from its nook. She flushed, hot and lustful at the sight of her rumpled bed. The room still smelled of sex. She took a breath and banked fiery thoughts to smolder until they could be properly examined.

At the kitchen table, they separated the bills and coins into piles of like, then counted. Annie wrote amounts down in columns. She did the math twice. Made Minn check her figuring.

$472.58

Minn watched Annie. She wore a tight mouth that wanted to smile and wide eyes.

"Now what?" Minn asked softly, breaking the silence. "What will you do?"

Annie looked her in the eye and then glanced away.

"If it came to it, and I needed to leave, would you consider taking me on and letting me live here?" Her question was little more than a whisper. "As a sort of apprentice, mayhaps?"

"Oh Annie-belle, I thought you'd never ask." Miss Minnie grinned and pulled her back into a tight hug. "What do you think, Sweetling? Of course you can stay here! Do you want me to front you the last thirty dollars? You can move into one of the lean-to's tonight."

"I couldn't," she replied, frowning deeply. "That would only set Vi off and be asking for retribution. And you've already done too much for me. Besides, before I break free of all of this, I need to make sure that the girls are situated and that Fern and Séam are all right. And then there's Daphne. They'll eat her alive. At least while I am there I can keep an eye out for her, and stand up to Vi when she is in the mood to play cat and mouse."

"Baby-girl, the world turns just fine without you spinning it. They will work themselves out."

"I can't just leave. I'll need to do things gradual-like." She folded her arms over her chest. "And then there's the matter of sleeping. I can't sleep alone. Not properly. Not since the other place. I'm forever crawling into bed with Fern or Vi or Dawn, and here I'd be on my own."

"What about a dog or a cat?" Minn suggested. "I could make a garlic tincture to help with fleas."

Annie's frown deepened. "All I am saying is I've a great deal to consider and plan out."

Minnerva grinned at the girl. "And all I'm saying is work, room, and board are all yours whenever you are ready for them."

Annie pulled away when Minn loosened her hold. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. "You know I'd pay you back - do whatever you needed me to. You've seen how hard I work; I'd earn my keep. And don't think I don't realize you slipped in extra besides what I rightfully earned. I've that to work off as well."

Miss Minnie hushed Annie's protests over her contributions with a hand on her generous hip and a harsh sound.

"Tshht! It's my goddamned money to do what the fuck I goddamned please with. What did I say about today? To shut the hell up and say thank you."

Annie started laughing and ended up wiping tears from the corners of her eyes.

"Now, I've got a sack of goods for the Garden. That part of the letter was true. Come and let's gather it up. You can leave it on the porch for now because your Mr. Bates is likely wondering where you've run off to."

Minnerva Ballard watched, through her front window, as Annie and the tall Brit smiled ridiculously at one another. The pane of glass distorted their image somewhat; it made them look vaguely as though she were viewing them from underwater.

She sighed heavily. Ian couldn't stay long. There was too much at stake to risk over a single lovesick look. If anyone caught on, his death would include horrors she couldn't think about. And she'd probably get herself killed trying to protect him.

...

The crowd at the Garden was only lukewarm when she pushed in. They hadn't yet encountered the first wave of the evening. Fern was all paint and torn lace, ready for the oncoming throng and already occupied arguing with the first drunk of the afternoon.

Annie used her fullest, deepest, Alyssum-voice, "Quit with your belly-aching, Jeremiah Cartwright! You desirous of being fucked or banned? Pick one or t'other. You can't have both."

It only took a bit of negotiating to settle the drunkard's dispute and she somehow managed to get him out into the bathhouse where he would likely pass out in one of the tubs. After his bath turned cold and he slept some of his drunk off, he'd rouse and be ready and able to use up his tokens. If sober enough to keep a cockstand, he was a reasonable enough trick. Tonight he was just one in a long string of persons she didn't feel like dealing with.

"Where's she at?" she spoke low to Fern as Jeremiah's squawks muffled through the wall.

"Upstairs." Fern looked at her with an unreadable expression.

She stepped behind bar and helped Fern wipe down fresh washed glasses from the kitchen.

"She was quiet, for her," Fern said in a hushed voice. "She's hissuing and rattling, Little Bird. More so after she read the letter. And then Rosie went up with a tray for her, so who knows what sort of horse-shit's been dropped in her ear. She said for me to send you up when you got back, but I'd get a few tokens in your palm first, show her why she lets you have a bit of leash."

It was advice Annie later wished she had heeded. But she didn't want to prolong the inevitable, didn't want to wander around wondering what would happen.

Annie walked through the door to Vi's office, only to be jarred senseless for a few seconds by Vi's slap. It made her ear ring.

"What the hell was that for?!" she squawked, holding her head.

"To remind you the fuck to be working when you're supposed to be working. I've been looking at the books. You owe me a token every half hour for the time you were gone Sunday night. By my reckoning, that's about 5 or 6 tokens on top of the five you turned in on Sunday."

"Christ, Vi! It was Sunday! I ain't ever turned that many tricks that late in a Sunday night. The fuck?"

"And on top of that, you owe me an extra token for letting him fuck you. Each time he fucked you."

Annie's gut went cold. She swallowed and tried to keep her face smooth. She hadn't ever told Vi about him. Hadn't spoken of him with any of the girls save Daphne. She flirted with all sorts of men when she was outside, not just Mr. Bates. Vi was just speaking in general, whatever man she thought her to be off with, not him.

"I ain't fucked anyone in the time I was gone Sunday night; I was just down by the river!" she spat defiantly.

"You owe me a token for fucking that John Bates. The Duke's goddamn dandy."

"And what would you know about that?" It was all she could do to stop herself from shaking, but years of fighting with Vi had taught her to hold her ground and bluster through just like Vi did.

"That I was about to come step in Sunday with that trick waving his six-shooter about. But a certain someone intervened. Didn't he? After that you disappeared for over three hours. So. I want his tokens."

She felt sick. Forced herself to stay fierce and stand her ground. "I told you I ain't fucked anyone in the time I was gone."

"Six tokens for Sunday, a token for Wednesday morning, and two tokens for today since you weren't scheduled to be working the floor until an hour ago. Don't think I ain't seen him skulking about, riding down the alley. I may have slept late this morning but I have eyes as stay open when mine are shut."

Annie pushed off of the wood plank floor and turned to leave. Vi was there, roughly clicking the door shut, shoving her against it, trapping her with a forearm across the throat and a larger frame.

"I. Fucking. Own. You. I paid five hundred dollars for your mousy little cunt when you were only worth two. And that only because you are small and look younger than you are and have pretty blue eyes. What do you think A.G. Fellers would have done to you after you broke out? And ran away on top of it all? Your cunt was his. You running off from him or me is same as stealing. Don't you fucking forget it.

"I'll cut you a deal and say you only owe me five extra tokens for Sunday instead of six. And two for fucking him this week, not three. By my count you have seven extra irons to see to tonight. Now get back out there and actually earn something, you spoiled little shit."

Annie bit here lip and held her face hard and even, bore it all without showing any emotion. Until Vi said, "You know A.G. told me he would be happy to take you off my hands if you didn't prove. Pretty sure the offer still stands. Don't make me send you back there."

The air left her lungs. Vi glared at her until she dropped her eyes and nodded, wilting, believing the threat. She wasn't sure Vi would, but she wasn't sure she wouldn't either. Vi's arm dropped away from her throat.

"Now go earn me some money," Vi sneered.

She didn't know how she made it out the door and down the corridor. She changed into her working dress mechanically. The black with pink ribbons. She wouldn't stand in the shadow of the porch and watch for him later, she decided. The woman in the mirror looked sultry dabbing on rouge and eyeblack, sensual and confident. Alyssum Annie had all the answers, while Anna May didn't even know what questions to ask. She smoothed the finishing touches to her mask, reddening her lips and tucking feathers into her hair, and turned to face her evening.

She was off of her game all night. Each time she tried to find her stride seducing her next trick, she thought back to kissing him, and she lost her drive, her direction. It made her skin crawl every time another man laid hand on her. Letting them fuck her was nearly intolerable. By the end of the evening, she had met the mark she needed to. Fridays were busy. She hated herself like she hadn't since before she'd become Alyssum Annie. Everything was different.

She was never sure what she disliked more, fucking without coming or coming when she didn't want to. She experienced both a handful of times as the evening bled into early morning.

Vi hadn't been down all night, which was odd for a Friday. She was standing at the window nearest her desk, watching the lamplit thoroughfare, when Annie went in and left the tokens in a neat stack on Vi's desk.

"When were you going to tell me?" Vi didn't look at her. She spoke in a cold voice. "He's not any different, you know. Paid me, same as the others."

She was lying. Trying to get a rise.

"Who for?" Annie asked sarcastically.

"For you."

She had to look away from Vi's sneer, unsteadied by this new knowledge. It was as though she were privy to something she shouldn't be.

"Didn't he tell you? Paid me for your time, the time you spent dawdling, talking with and mooning over him, that you thought I wasn't noticing. Time when you could have been selling tail. He's had you bothered and off your game. He said something about paying for me to leave you be. But fucking wasn't part of the deal, or I would have charged him more.

"You tell John Bates that if he wants to continue his previous arrangement with me for your time, then he needs to limp his sorry ass over to me to work out the details. And tell him, any more fucking needs be done on the premises. I knew he was paying for more than your time."


	16. Stone Fruit

**A/n: Thanks and love to my betas: Lynnsaundersfanfic and it-is-bugs, you are amazing. And gratitude to all of you for being supportive and patient over the last while. Random side note: Split-stuff is an actual logging term ****for things like fencing slats and grape stakes, so it looks like a note to myself to look up the names for things, but it was genuinely what the things were called. **

* * *

><p>Annie had gone as still as the stone of a peach, alive inside of a thick, hard casing, biding her time. Weeks passed, and she swallowed her wants and desires and made herself impenetrable in the ways available to her.<p>

It took more than hope for a pit to germinate. She never would have been able to sprout her peach trees without Miss Minnie's help. Annie had listened raptly as the older woman detailed the magic combination of moisture, cold, and dormancy necessary to tease the life inside the pit to greening. Three years later, and Annie was tending her first small crop. Slowly softening, not-quite-ripe peaches bowed the branches of three saplings behind the Garden; they were the living proof of Miss Minnie's sound advice. It was good to remember how long it took and how patient she needed to be while the pits germinated, grew, and finally, bore fruit. She understood patience. She knew how to wait and wear any mask a situation called for. But this time felt different. It was harder to lay still. So in her spare moments, (and they were very spare) she worked at building up a stone bed around her peach trees.

That's where she was when she heard the news, awkwardly lugging a large stone up near the top of the embankment. Jessamine and Delphinium were talking in ripe whispers. One of the girls across the road had killed herself, had opened a vein all over an upstairs mattress at the Queen of Hearts.

It threw her off balance, and she tripped. She was forced to drop the stone to avoid falling. She did a strange sort of hopping leap while it was still midair to keep her toes from being crushed.

It didn't clack and tumble all the way down the steep, root-strewn slope, but nearly. She sighed, and tried to remember if deceit was why Zeus cursed Sisyphus to roll the boulder up the hill forever. She decided to put the task off for the time being. The peach tree saplings would survive another day as they were. They'd made it this far. The rock wasn't going anywhere, and with her luck she'd just drop it again anyhow, as heavy as it was. She supposed she should find someone to carry it with her. Daphne or Fern would do it if she asked it of them. Séam would too, but he would tease her, and besides she despised calling on others for help. It would keep. Her hens needed her. They would be weeping and flapping, and want tending.

For a morning in mid-June, it was hot and dry. Nearly a month had passed since Vi had struck her. The bruise on her cheekbone had faded rapidly away, but the one on her elbow was lingering and sallow. Vi had come down on her like an unbalanced load of split-stuff. She tightened Annie's tether, increased her quota, and assigned a multitude of chores and tasks. In some ways it had been a blessed relief to be drowning in work; Annie never had a spare minute to think. The trouble was the impossibility of leaving for even a few hours. She was back in Vi's bed again, not necessarily on her good side, but back nonetheless. That was a mixed bag at best and proved to be the usual blessing and curse. Vi went through cycles. After a fight, she made nice, turned a bit meeker than usual. This time round, Vi cut shockingly back on her drinking, limiting her proper benders to Thursday night and Saturday. She wasn't kind, nor was she solicitous, but she wasn't nasty either. A sort of equilibrium had been reached, not a peace exactly, but a lull. Vi maintained a fragile semi-sobriety. Annie managed to stay on the property while making herself scarce, and found comfort in the repetitive drudgery of the work Vi assigned. Rosie vacillated between licking her wounded pride and acting relieved that Annie was once again Vi's familiar. Fern and Séam managed to keep their fraternizing restricted to times when Rosie and Vi weren't underfoot. Dawn seemed appeased, limiting her frustrations to complaining about the slowness of the ripening tomatoes, the midday heat, and the chill at night. Even Daphne was finally finding her rhythm.

After a hiatus of over two months, Jim Johnston reappeared, and strangely, he sidled up to Daphne, who looked at him as wild-eyed as any horse. But the odd livery-man suited Daphne exceptionally well. He'd been a trick of Annie's for years. People sold him short because he went off and crooked-like in others' company, but he had a good heart and was an endearing and attentive lover. He was brilliant when it came to calming spooked and skittish horses, and Daphne too, it would seem, for she had fared more than a touch better since then. He seemed to be just the thing to bolster the girl's confidence. Annie had given him a bit of good-natured teasing about switching girls. He blushed brightly and stuttered.

"No, it isn't that," he began awkwardly. "I do fancy you. It's that Duke's man. He's good to my boy, and I seen'd it how he looks at you and how'n you look back. Paying call to you after that, it don't seem right."

Annie fished the token she'd just earned from the hidden pocket in her bodice and gave it to him as a quiet sign of her gratitude.

"You'll have to see her again, on me," she'd said.

When he left later that night, he carried with him a brief note for Mr. Bates, one she had hastily scrawled on a torn piece of brown paper and sealed with candle wax. He was more than agreeable when she asked him. Annie smiled at the regard he had for Mr. Bates. She kept the letter brief, there wasn't much paper to begin with.

_I can't meet you on Sunday._

_V. told me about your arrangement. You should have said something. Why didn't you just tell me? I wouldn't have held it against you. I thought she hadn't noticed us yet. She's fit to be tied. Please stay away for now._

_Yours,_

_A._

She fretted over how she signed it. But it had flowed from her mind to the paper before she could censor herself. She left it. It was true.

She thought about it as she washed the garden off of her hands and feet. A month had passed since she wrote it, and still the truth of that one word — yours — and the fires it ignited in her (and how much it frightened her) resounded loudly. Sometimes she wanted them to, sometimes she didn't. She was learning to belong to herself again — or for the first time — and she didn't need him muddling that up. Only, she liked what she said when she was with him. She liked the sorts of things she felt and thought when she was with him. She liked the kindness he showed her. She liked standing taller and taking longer strides when they walked together. She liked that he knew who she was — who she really was — and where she came from. She liked knowing about him and his mother and his loyalty to the Earl. She liked that he had failings and made missteps in his life, and despite his shame, he had shared at least some of them with her. Spending time with him helped her feel more like herself than she had in years. She swallowed her thoughts and the gnawing ache that was the lack of him (When had she grown so accustomed to his presence?), and went inside the Garden.

The afternoon flew by, spent as it was putting out others' small fires. News of the girl's suicide had blown through the Garden like the wind. It proved to be an emotional day, with few tricks and many tears. Anxieties ran high.

Annie noticed Jessamine in the corner farthest from the bar. It was where Annie sat when she wanted to be anywhere but working the floor. Dark-haired Jessamine was only a few inches taller than Annie, but she was thickly built and amply proportioned. She had a heart-shaped face, brown eyes that shone red in the setting sunlight, and the thickest eyelashes Annie had ever seen. Her drawl marked her as Southern, but even after all these years in the States, Annie could not decipher the nuances well enough to discern the specific state. She had no intention of asking. None of the girls wished to think too much on their past; few happy stories lurked there. (No whore was where she was because she wanted to be.)The only thing Annie had inquired upon was her choice of names. Jessamine had told her that the smell of the night blooming jessamine was the one thing she missed about her childhood home. It was a simple bush with tiny, plain, pale-greenish flowers. At night it released a sweet, heady perfume. The way Jessamine described it made Annie smile and wish to smell it for herself, someday, even if she knew she never would.

Annie liked that Jessamine was stoic and strong-willed. She had a wit that was sharp without being cruel, and when she wasn't working she kept to herself. Jessamine was the last person Annie expected to see wiping her eyes dry in the far corner of the hall at the news of the Queen of Hearts' girl. Annie felt a momentary sinking in her gut. The girls who gnashed their teeth and beat their breasts could usually be counted on to simply make noise. It was the quiet ones that worried Annie. It wouldn't be the first or last time one of the camp's painted ladies turned up dead by her own hand. It had a habit of rippling through the brothels, saloons, and dance halls; when one whore killed herself, others usually followed suit. This was how she found herself sidling up to Jessamine. The Garden had only ever lost two of its number that way. And she would be damned if she let more join them.

* * *

><p>July rolled in with foggy mornings and mild, sunny days. Crews went up the sides of the mountain valleys, and the trees came down the flumes, dismembered and disemboweled. Over the course of the last month, three memories took root in John Bates' thoughts and grew until there was little room for other considerations; there they held space as he played poker.<p>

The intimate feel of the inside of her mouth was foremost on his mind. (The memory of her lips and tongue against his had proved enough to distract him from anything and everything he might be doing at any given time. It consumed him.)

Second to that, and in a different sort of visceral way, he was haunted by Vi's cold glare. On Anna's birthday, Vi had stood at the balcony rail when he rode from behind the Queen of Hearts on Isis, with an empty-saddled Pharaoh trailing behind them. She was an imperious near-statue that looked him dead in the eye and worked her jaw. (He had known then that Anna wouldn't be able to meet him at the train station that Sunday. The only surprise about her letter was that it came through Jim Johnston. He didn't want to ask.)

The last recollection he couldn't persuade to leave him was that of the pompous and lofty words that tripped out of his employer's mouth when John voiced his intentions in May. They were words that made him angry and hopeful at the same time. ("Goodness. It sounds like the plot of a tawdry penny-dreadful. Well, you know me, Bates, a romantic at heart. As long as she can play the part of respectable fiancée and wife, and your work does not suffer, who am I to stand in the way?")

John had a miserable hand. Moses Stahl called him out from around the nectarine pit he sucked. "You're playing for shit, Bates. Again."

"The cards haven't been favoring me," he said noncommittally, taking a bite of his own nectarine. The stone fruit season was full swing. Norah Jane and Coop had a few trees on their property. They canned the peaches and shared the nectarines, which didn't let go of their pit as readily and tended to turn to brown mush in the jar. John had been the happy recipient of a five-pound sugar-sack full of them. He shared them dutifully with his poker-mates.

"Don't give me that line of horse-shit," Moses said, tonguing the pit up into his cheek. "Blaming the cards when it's your own distracted-ass that's the problem - that's a nancy move."

"Word is you ain't been sighted with your songbird for the last little while," Winston Lawrence interjected.

John didn't have the heart to feign ignorance. Nor did he have the desire to discuss the matter, so he flatly ignored the comment.

"It had seemed like you might make an honest woman out of her," Franklin Bertram intoned.

"Leave it," he said quietly and bet high, bluffing. He was less than convincing and lost the hand.

They were a motley crew of what was usually few words. When they did converse, it tended to be on the nights that Bertram's half bottle of Kentucky bourbon appeared. That happened when the flask of pumpkin whiskey had already been passed more than it should. Bertram poured a single shot from the bottle, which they passed around, taking sips, philosophizing and soliloquizing on all manner of experience. They had fought as boys and young men in the war between the states. Now they worked side by side and played poker when they were able. They eked their game out at lunch or after supper, or while they were waiting for the big trees to fall. Bates liked them for their straightforwardness and their silence. There was comfort in breaking bread with them, a sense of shared experience.

The screams of the dying still echoed in their ears. They knew what it was to wake, all these years later, to the phantom smells of gunpowder and death. Day in and day out, they had each of them been ordered to do things — despicable things — that they didn't want to remember. They had shot at other men and boys who were exactly like themselves. They had learned to exist hand in hand with hunger and exhaustion, knew about sacrifice, lancing, biting, searing pain and disease, about insect infested rations, dysentery and fouled water. They remembered the begging, weeping wounded.

They didn't need to talk about it to find their peace. (Though occasionally they did. And strangely, after they did, he felt stronger, more resolved to his lot in life, less alone.) Their comfort came from sitting together. It came in having a regular paycheck and no body counts to live with. They were all soldiering through their own individual aches and pains, broken bodies and minds, and they had each of them found their own way through to surviving, somehow. In the end, they are all just the overgrown shards of the boys they once were. How they had managed to survive this long was anyone's guess. He only wished they would let go of their prodding about Anna.

He had been drinking more in her silence, her absence. He thought of her from the moment his eyes opened, before that even. He read the simple letter she sent him over and over. He didn't know how to respond. He knew only that he longed to see her. He worried fiercely about her welfare. That night when he retired to his cabin, he wrote a letter and addressed it to the girl he had seen Jim Johnston with on the Garden's porch as he rode by a few days ago, - Daphne.

* * *

><p>Dawn cornered Annie during the first week of July. It was a cool morning, a Friday. "I'm out of bay leaves. You know the right tree to get them from. Bring me back a sackful. I'll tell her I sent you. It's for the chicken soup she likes, so she can't be too upset. Besides, you shan't be gone long, a half hour or so."<p>

He was waiting there. Looking combed and sleek, John Bates apologetically offered her a peach. It irritated her that her body responded to seeing him almost against her will. His presence meant he must have somehow gotten Dawn to conspire with him. He could have gotten a note to Daphne through Jim Johnston. Daphne would have chosen Dawn over Fern as a co-conspirator. It irritated Annie, particularly because it would likely only get her in more trouble. She ignored him and the peach (so ripe she could smell it from where she stood, so ripe it made her mouth water) and turned to the tree, selecting leaves one at a time, cutting their stems with a pocket knife. She slipped them into her sack carefully.

"Doesn't do to crush the leaves before they've dried," she said distantly. Her frustration led her to ramble, continuing on in a low drone. "It dulls the flavor. The morning has been a fine one. The wisps of fog on those ridges — the ones still full of trees — remind me of wool on a carding comb." She turned her gaze and her attention to him, her voice suddenly flat. "You should have told me."

"I didn't want you to think...," he said, and paused. He blinked several times. "I didn't want you to know I had spent money on you. It seemed vulgar, though I didn't do it for vulgar reasons."

"I didn't think you did." She sighed and turned back to the bay tree, cutting more leaves and slipping them into her sack.

"Vi already knew who I was; the words gentleman caller were used. She accused me of distracting you and keeping you from earning money. It seemed a reasonable way to get her to leave you alone about it."

"I don't argue that — and it was a kind thought — but you should have told me. What were you even doing in the Garden?"

"You were up with Mrs. Ballard. Tending your friend, Eunice. I hadn't seen you in a week. It left me concerned."

She sagged and, to her surprise, began to laugh.

"Oh you sweet, fool man. Between Vi and Miss Minnie, you'll be eaten alive, nothing but bones picked clean. Now you're throwing Dawn in the mix, too."

"I had nothing but the best of intentions," he said in meek defense.

"I don't doubt it. But I lied to Vi, thinking she didn't know about you. Now I've been caught out, and Vi suspects us of all manner of deceit and vulgarity. She said that your tokens ran out a while ago and has me burning the midnight oil in exchange for lost revenue."

"What do you mean 'burning the midnight oil?' She hasn't made you turn in extra tokens for your time with me, has she?"

Annie looked away, her cheeks, throat, and ears burning hotly. "That's none of your concern."

"How can you say that?" The roughness of his whisper hurt her ears.

"I shouldn't have said anything. It's just that it's a fine balance with Vi, one that is difficult enough to manage when the boat isn't being rocked."

"Anna," he whispered, low and with concern in eyes. (It physically hurt in that moment to be called Anna. She had shoved Anna May back into a wooden box the night of her birthday and nailed the lid shut.) "You shouldn't have to walk on eggshells. Vi hasn't any right to do what she does. Slavery was abolished in this country almost twenty years ago. Vi doesn't own you."

"But she does. She's paid for me, and it saved my life. Until I pay her back, she owns me."

"Even if she paid for you, you don't deserve to be treated like that, to slave away for her. You don't owe her that." He pressed his lips thin and sighed. "I could help you buy out your contract."

"So it is alright for you to pay money for me, but not Vi?" she asked in a tone that was more shrill than she wished it to be. She shook her head and did her best to soften her expression. "Thank you, Mr. Bates. I mean it. I know that the offer comes from a place of kindness, and I don't wish to belittle that. But I couldn't take your money; I shouldn't like to be beholden to you or anyone if I can help it."

"It would be a gift, you'd be beholden to no one."

"I'm a stubborn woman, Mr. Bates. It's kept me alive thus far. I don't want any rescuing. I've dug my own hole, now I must climb out of it."

"What about accepting help from someone who has a rope and steadier footing? Life isn't a burden you have to carry alone. You don't deserve to be in this situation, to be treated the way you are."

She sighed and looked at him.

"None of us deserves our situations. You don't understand; this place is a refuge, a haven. Do you have any idea how bad it can be when men run the brothels? How much the girls are cheated and degraded? How little choice they have? Look at the Queen of Hearts; a girl over there killed herself a few weeks ago. Ours is a miserable existence under the best of circumstances. You can't know what it's like to be locked up, or have no other place to go, to have all manner of painful, shameful things done to you. Those men, the place she saved me from..."

She wasn't sure which was worse, the way _he_ looked, or the way he looked at _her_. She turned away from him to collect herself for a moment, but kept talking in an almost singsong voice, "I don't desire your pity, Mr. Bates, only for you to understand. After Vi bought me, saved me from that — once I was sober and able to form a coherent thought — all I could think about was burning it down. That was how horrible it was there. I'm not the sort to want to hurt a fly, Mr. Bates. Those men, though - I wanted them dead. If I'm honest, I do still."

"What kept you from it?" he asked. He didn't sound like he pitied or judged her; instead, she heard compassion in his question, concern.

"I thought of the other girls," she said struggling to hold the emotion from her face. "I never saw them; they were voices I heard crying through the walls. The ones as didn't get away, that won't get away. Part of me wanted to do it for them. I would have welcomed death while I was there, to be put out of my misery. That would have been a mercy. But he has them locked in their rooms. They'd have been trapped, terrified, and choking on smoke. And for what?

"The men would be able to get out, but the girls would die, and he would just do it again. His men would build or buy another structure. Then they would search out whatever girls they needed in the poorest sections of town in Santa Cruz or Monterey. There the women and girls are desperate for work, lined up like fruit to be plucked. It is an exceptionally easy thing to trick fourteen or fifteen year old girls into giving their lives away, especially ones who think poorly of themselves, or come from hardships, or who possess a sheltered and over-inflated notion of love. And there is always just outright kidnapping, if naught else works. What are we to do? We can't go to the law. How would the law ever listen to a thing the lot of us said? Not when the ex-sheriff himself used to pay to have me."

"Kant?" he asked with a shocked expression.

"No, no. Not him. He's a decent sort. No, Kant was never sheriff, he was deputy to that sheriff. It was his old boss. Kant likely never knew. What I am trying to say is that it may not look like it, but Vi treats us well. She gives us choices, protects us, makes sure we are well fed, pays Miss Minnie to tend us. We each have a bed to sleep in. I know of places where the only beds are for the tricks and the girls are made to sleep like dogs on benches or the floor. Or all of them to just a few beds.

"I'm not being forcibly held in a windowless room. I can say no to any man I don't like, for any reason. I can make a difference with these girls; I can help them and keep them safe."

He looked so pained, so sad that it made her heart hurt. She touched his arm, in an attempt to reassure.

"You seem to be eager to absolve me of my past, Mr. Bates, but it's who I am now, too. And it isn't something that is easy to walk away from no matter how much I might want to. Even so, I thank you for trying. If it helps, think of it this way; all of this — everything I have lived through — has made me strong, stronger than I ever imagined I could be." She let her fingertips trace the lines of his face.

"You _are_ strong," he said in a pleading tone. "That doesn't mean you have to go it alone."

She stood on her toes and kissed his freshly shaven cheek. "I must be getting back, bearing my bay leaves. Your meddling — well-intentioned though it may be — has temporarily cost me what little freedom I have."

It was hard not to let her gaze linger on the colors of his eyes or to be drawn in by the range of emotions that played over his usually stoic face. Before he could speak, she hushed him.

"And don't you dare apologize. I know you're sorry; everything about this is sorry. I know you had the best of intentions. I'm cross, but I'm not, not truly. I do need you to stay away, though."

She lifted back up onto her toes and kissed him, pulled him tight to her mouth. There was a fierceness in the way she searched him out and claimed him, carving a promise into his lips. When he was with her, it was like electricity in the air during a thunderstorm. Her sweet Mr. Bates, who could make her feel like they were making love by simply fitting his hand to the slope of her back. She let herself welcome the sensation of her desire as it coiled low in her belly, budded her nipples and washed behind her knees. She was growing used to the quiet fire of it. All of the other times — with all of the other men — over the course of the last three and a half weeks, her arousal had felt vulgar and deceitful. But not here. Not with him. She tugged him into a tighter embrace. He only felt good.

"Go," she breathed against his ear, apologetically. "And stay away. I'll write you when I can, but for now needs dictate patience and care."

She nipped his earlobe for good measure, then his throat, but kissed him chastely. She could be patient. She could wait for the stars to align themselves. She could stay dormant until it was time to unfurl, to split open her hard casing and search out the sun and wind. He lifted his arm as she turned to walk away.

"Your peach," he said.

She looked at him and his offering. She stepped towards him and bit off a single, ripe mouthful of the peach as he held it. While she chewed, she guided his hand up to press the fruit to his own lips. She felt the look he gave her between her thighs. It sluiced up her back. It was all she could to do to turn and walk away, smiling, pleased with her restraint and lack thereof. The peach was perfect. It was fragrant, just this side of softness, and tasted loudly of the heat of summer. She wiped juice from her chin and licked it from her wrist like a cat, greedy for the flavor to linger in her mouth as she walked back to the Garden.


End file.
